A Broken Wizard and a Broken Magus
by Neolyph
Summary: After six years of abuse with the Dursleys, Harry Potter is sent to the Matou Estate by Zelretch. There, he does his best to protect Sakura growing up and acts as the Makiri Master in the Fifth Grail War. Harem. Rewrite.
1. Chapter 1: Start of Darkness

**Right, welcome back everybody. As most of you who read the AN last chapter know, I've been doing some serious thinking about this story. I sat down and mapped out everything I could do with what I had written, and let me tell you it wasn't pretty. I got lazy writing some pretty important parts of the story, and it's screwed me over big time. In lieu of trying to plow forward with that trainwreck, I'm going to take what I feel is the safer approach and do a fresh rewrite.**

 **To be completely honest, I couldn't find _any_ motivation to continue the story in its current state. It was just too cringe-worthy in my opinion. Too many stupid cliches and too much poor writing. My Harry was a godlike Mary Sue. I think the real turning point came when I had to keep re-reading chapters because even _I_ had forgotten some of the stuff I pulled out of my ass to justify shit.**

 **I think I have grown a lot as a writer since I first started this story, and I'd like to give this story a fresh start.**

 **Thus, this marks chapter 1 of the rewrite. I'll not apologize if this makes you angry. I don't like how my story is, so I'm fixing it. A lot of the plot will change, Harry's godlike Sue'ness will be toned down. He's still powerful, but within reason.**

 **Also, sorry for the wait on this one. I both wrote a first chapter of _another_ story and lost all my progress on this chapter right at the end and had to redo it.**

 **That said, welcome to A Broken Wizard and a Broken Magus... Reborn!**

Chapter 1: Start of Darkness

Kischur Zelretch von Schweinorg sat in the study of his Clock Tower rooms, penning his memoirs. His mind was only half dedicated to his work, as the other half was occupied with solving a conundrum he'd recently uncovered.

Mastery of the Kaleidoscope granted more than the ability to travel between parallel dimensions—it was the operation of parallel dimensions. When he fully applied it, he could learn every pertinent detail about any reality he desired. It granted a certain degree of omniscience.

This was a great and powerful ability, but it came at a cost. He had once been a young and promising magus that searched for Akasha like all the others. His chosen field of study was uncovering the nature of reality. With his talent, he surpassed his peers by leaps and bounds until with one final experiment he found it. Unfortunately, attempting to fully understand the twisting nature of the omniverse shattered his mind.

As such, rather than use his power over all possible realities to improve them or further his former research into Akasha, he mostly used it for his own amusement.

Of course, he did hold _some_ measure of responsibility towards his home dimension. When Crimson Moon Brunestud had attempted to destroy the earth by crashing the moon into it, he had called upon the power of the multiverse to defeat the threat, but the strain had severely crippled his ability to use the Kaleidoscope to its true potential. Even when he became a Dead Apostle Ancestor however, he didn't let it alter his pro-humanity stance.

When the Holy Grail War was first being established, he'd assisted the three founding families in creating both the system and the rules. It was this very ritual that was now causing him headaches.

If the information he'd gleaned from the Kaleidoscope was to be believed—and he had little reason to doubt it—the Einzberns had attempted to cheat at some point during the Third War. Their endeavors had _somehow_ caused the Holy Grail to be infected with the _Zoroastrian god of evil_ , of all things. He shook his head, wondering what madness caused the Einzberns to let an evil deity possess their precious Grail.

Then again, perhaps he should not be throwing stones when it came to madness.

Now with the Fourth War coming to a close, the situation was just being exacerbated. Kiritsugu Emiya, the famous Magus Killer, was going to uncover the Grail's corruption and would attempt to destroy it. He would be unsuccessful, of course, and the Matou would pick up the pieces for use in the next war.

Without intervention, the Fifth Grail War would bring an end to humanity. In most universes, what kept this from happening was the intervention of one Shirou Emiya—the adopted son of the Magus Killer. The boy would, through any number of means, bring about both a permanent end for the war and the destruction of Angra Mainyu. Zelretch's frustration stemmed from his universe having no such figure.

Direct interference would do no good, unfortunately. In his weakened state, he could not afford to go toe-to-toe with a god—and it was not his style in the first place. He was always more of a passive observer. If he was forced to step in and sort this war out, he would not do so directly; he would find someone to do it for him.

Slumping down at his desk, he closed his eyes and opened up the channel to to the omniverse. Infinite realities flashed before his eyes, but he narrowed his search to find what he sought. He needed someone young enough to be easily inserted into the war—preferably someone with magical ability as well. Of course, Zelretch was not a heartless individual, so he also expanded his search to include those orphaned and suffering abuse; he didn't was to take a child from a loving family.

A Grail War was no easy thing to win either, he thought; with that in mind, he added the fields of cunning, intelligence, and magical power.

Due to the nature of the omniverse, even with these qualifiers the number of candidates were still theoretically infinite. Faced with such a monumental decision—a decision that may very well decide the fate of his entire world—he handled it with all of the wisdom and maturity expected of one in his position.

" _Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,_ " he hummed as he put one hand over his eyes. At the end, his finger rested on the visual representation of one particular universe, and a boy living in it; a universe of witches and wizards, and a boy nobody thought would ever amount to anything.

Chuckling, the Wizard Marshall donned his coat and vanished in a flash of colors.

* * *

Six-year old Harry Potter sniffled as he tried to wipe away the blood from his nose. For the second time this week, his uncle had beat him and thrown him out of the house. He still didn't know why all of this had started. Before two years ago, his aunt and uncle had absolutely doted on him, throwing him a massive party for his fourth birthday. His little cousin Dudley had just been born a few weeks ago, and Aunt Petunia had let him hold the infant.

Being a newborn, Dudley had thrown up all over Harry. That was when the _strangeness_ , as Uncle Vernon had screamed to him, happened. He'd been disgusted by the baby's vomit, and after carefully handing Dudley back to Aunt Petunia, they went upstairs to change his shirt so he could get back to his party.

Except, he hadn't needed to change shirts. As they reached his bedroom, he felt this twisting sensation in his stomach, almost making him sick himself, and when he looked down his cousin's vomit was gone. Aunt Petunia had just stood there, staring at him with wide and horrified eyes. She screamed for Uncle Vernon, and when he came upstairs to learn what all the fuss was about, Aunt Petunia whispered something in his ear.

Uncle Vernon's face went white, then green, before finally deciding on purple. He stomped downstairs, loudly and violently declaring that the party was over and shouting for everyone to leave his house.

Once the house was empty, Vernon had whirled on Harry and dragged him by the collar of his shirt down the stairs. After a moment of consideration, he shoved Harry in the cupboard under the stairs and placed a chair in front of the door to keep it shut. Harry had pounded on the door to no avail, before slumping against the wall, weeping.

As he lay in the darkness with the dust and the spiders, he could hear Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia loudly arguing. He didn't understand much of what they were talking about, but he heard some.

" _We were promised, Pet, that this boy would have absolutely no freakishness about him! None! That was why they wanted to pawn him off to us! Didn't want a normal boy raised among freaks! We took him in on that merit and treated him like a son, and this is how he repays us? By betraying that trust and letting his freakishness loose? I won't have it Pet, I won't have it!_ "

" _Vernon, dear, it's not like we can just give the boy back. The old man, Dumbledore, said that my sister and her husband were going to hiding. Something about some evil freak. If they're hiding themselves from their fellow freaks, we certainly won't be able to find them. No, our only hope is that they'll come for him when he turns eleven. That's when Lily got her letter from that school. If we hold onto him until then, we can send him back to his kind._ "

Harry heard his uncle let loose a snarl of frustration and he heard what sounded like a fist hitting a table.

" _I'll go along with this, Pet, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I'm going to make that freak regret forcing his way into our lives and betraying our trust. I'll beat the freakishness out of him if I have to._ "

" _I've no qualms about that dear. None at all._ "

It was another day before Uncle Vernon had opened the door of the cupboard, but that was only to let Harry use the bathroom.

"Don't want some freak stinking up my house with his mess," his uncle had muttered. When Harry tried to ask what was going on, his uncle had just hit him and shoved him into the bathroom.

This pretty much set the tone for the next two years. He had virtually no communication with his aunt or uncle. If he talked, he was hit. If he cried, he was hit. If he tried to get more food than the scraps his uncle tossed him, he was hit. Once he was "fed" and let use the bathroom, he was locked in the cupboard once again.

The only notable diversions from this routine were when he had an incident of "freakishness". Those were never fun. They were what had Harry in his current situation. Uncle Vernon had tossed him a scrap of toast, but Harry had been so hungry that he felt that dreaded twisting sensation—the next thing he knew he was holding an entire loaf's worth of toast. His uncle immediately noticed it, and the usual routine commenced. His belt came off, and the metal caught Harry in the nose. He fell to his knees, eyes watering. His vision could gone hazy, but he could make out his uncle's purple face screaming at him.

He definitely felt something break when his uncle's foot caught him right in the ribs. Fortunately, they were already miraculously healed from when this had happened a few days ago.

"OUT!" his uncle roared, and Harry's breathing was cut off as his uncle snatched the back of his collar and started dragging him towards the door—voluntarily or involuntarily choking him. Harry went limp, knowing that there was no fighting it. Sleeping on the floor of the cupboard was bad, but at least it was warm and dry. Any incident of freakishness had him locked in the garden shed for a few days.

When the door of the shed shut and Harry heard the snap of the padlock, he started doing his best to treat his wounds. His nose and ribs definitely felt broken, but that was alright. As the one saving grace of his freakishness, whenever he went to sleep whatever injuries he had were usually healed in the morning. What really scared him was that his bouts of freakishness were becoming alarmingly more frequent. He wasn't sure how much longer his uncle would tolerate it before doing something... drastic.

"You're entirely right, you know," came a voice behind him. Harry scrambled against the wall of the shed and tried to make out the person standing on the opposite end. It was very dark, but he could just make out the silhouette of a tall man. He considered calling for his uncle, but he wasn't sure if his uncle would hear him—or care.

"W-what?" Harry asked, terrified.

"You're right," the voice replied, "On both counts. Your incidents of accidental magic are increasing in frequency. At the rate you're going, I project your death at the hands of your uncle inside about a month."

Harry gasped. He hadn't said that out loud. Was this man reading his mind? He saw a magician on the telly once that could read minds, but Uncle Vernon had turned it off as soon as he saw it. Still, it was worth a question.

"Are you a magician?" he asked, still scared—but also excited at the prospect. From nowhere, a bright light illuminated the interior of the shed. The man stepped forward, and in the light Harry could see the man's red eyes and gleeful smile. The suspicion started welling up in Harry that this man was slightly... barmy as Aunt Petunia would likely put it, or 'a bloody nutter,' as Uncle Vernon almost certainly would.

"Why yes," the man announced with the tone of the only one understanding a joke, "Yes I am. I'm the best magician ever—famous for it, in fact."

The man knelt down in front of Harry to get on eye-level with him.

"So tell me, Harry Potter, how would you like to become a magician too?"

* * *

The Wizard Marshall returned to his apartments with a happy little skip in his step. The boy he'd... borrowed fit all of the criteria he'd been seeking—a tad naive, but the boy _was_ six. He laid his new charge on a worktable and used a bout of Structural Analysis to check the boy's health and magic.

One stipulation he'd placed on his search of the Kaleidoscope was that the target's magic be compatible with that of magi. Bearing that in mind, he examined the wizarding approximation of magical circuits. From what he could gather, rather than having numerous magical circuits distributed throughout their body that generated prana on use, wizards had a single massive magical core, which had a pre-existing reserve prana that recharged passively. As such, wizards had better endurance while magi had access to more power at once.

Of course, the stipulation of only a single magical outlet severely hindered a wizard's ability to practice their magic without the use of a mystic code. They seemed to compensate for this by crafting amplification mystic codes from the remains of inherently-magical phantasmal beasts like dragons or phoenixes.

Now, getting such materials would be a problem in a universe where the average phantasmal beast was either extinct or godlike in power. Not to mention, young Harry's magical system would have to pass for magecraft. The obvious solution to this was to modify the boy's core and stretch it out into a circuit system.

After all, he _was_ the _Wizard_ Marshall. How hard could it be?

* * *

Six hours and four instances of cardiac arrest later, Harry's magical core had been converted into a network of exactly one hundred high-quality magical circuits. Upon consideration, another cunning plan worked its way into the condensed frivolity that was Zelretch's brain.

It had been _so_ long since he'd last had an apprentice. Ever since the last one had been eaten by a shoggoth, Lorelei had put her foot down and told him that she wasn't sending any more promising magi to be used as interdimensional cannon fodder. Zelretch had sighed, and accepted that. On the surface, at least.

His eyes glanced down to the boy on his impromptu operating table. He _was_ already outsourcing; what was the harm in testing a little theory he'd been working out? It was related to the effects of a True Magic on a magical crest. The purpose of any crest was to both transfer magical energy in the form of circuits and pre-made spells devised by the wielders of the crest.

But would True Magic work on a crest?

Only one way to find out, Zelretch decided.

* * *

A _greatly_ pained Zelretch wheezed as he sunk down into a chair. A fair number of his magical circuits had been disabled by the fight with Crimson Moon, but that didn't necessarily mean that they wouldn't work for anyone else.

That thought in mind, he'd excruciatingly carved out twenty-five inert circuits and formed them into a family crest. He refrained from infusing them with the Kaleidoscope, however. If anyone took a look at the crest in its current form, it would just appear to be a formation of circuits; but with a True Magic in them, his charge would fall under much greater scrutiny.

For the moment, he decided that he'd done as much as he could for the boy. He'd briefed Harry on his upcoming downturn in living accommodations, and promised that there would come a day where all would be well.

After two years of abuse at the hands of the Dursleys, Harry was still eager for the opportunity. Zelretch wished he could have explained in detail the trials the boy would face, but he knew that it was a poor decision and that the boy's mind wouldn't change.

It was too late to intervene in the Fourth War, and doing so wouldn't matter. The dominoes that would spark the Fifth War had already fallen, so all Zelretch could do was go down the line and stick in his own piece.

" _Good luck_ ," he whispered as he laid a hand on Harry's face and utilized the Kaleidoscope to send him on his way.

* * *

Fire.

Harry's world was fire, and blood, and smoke.

Fire.

He was engulfed in a fire so large that the very word lost its meaning. On bare feet, he wandered through the blaze in a complete daze.

With unfocused and smoke-filled eyes he watched the suffering surrounding him: a mother clutched her children as a house collapsed on them, a teenager desperately tried to pull his brother free from some beams only to be consumed as a gas main detonated the street, a boy around Harry's age clutched the blackened stump of his mother's hand as the life faded from her eyes.

Despite it all, Harry realized that he felt nothing for these people. No pity, no sadness, no pain.

Nothing.

The thought didn't even scare him, the thought of feeling nothing.

The last thing Harry saw was a trenchcoat-wearing man stumbling through the inferno much as Harry himself was. He was about to call out to the man when he heard a creaking and the house above him collapsed right on top of him.

* * *

Zouken Matou strode through the smoldering ruins of Fuyuki City without a care in the world. Since that pathetic excuse for a magus Emiya had destroyed that Grail, he was forced to scavenge the ashes for the pieces of it.

As he approached the center of the city, he felt pulses of prana emanating from the pile of burnt scrap that was once a building. He couldn't believe his luck as he sent his familiars to search the wreckage. When instead of shattered pieces of the Grail, his familiars instead fed him images of an unconscious boy, Zouken couldn't help but be surprised.

Out of curiosity, he had his worms clear the debris away so that he could make a closer inspection. A pulse of Structural Analysis revealed that this boy had one hundred and twenty-five magical circuits of startling quality. For a first-generation magus, this was unprecedented, but that was the only possible explanation for this boy.

The impressive array of circuits had never been activated, so he'd received no training in magecraft thus far, and were he part of a family they would have already begun transferring the crest to him. Instead, this boy was a blank slate.

He was just about to command his familiars to devour the boy and assimilate his energy when a particularly devious thought wormed its way into his head.

Kariya had failed in his role as a Master due to inexperience and weakness. Zouken's current plan was to use have his newest acquisition, Sakura, marry his grandson Shinji and rebuild the Makiri clan. Of course, this brought about the problem that Shinji was worthless as both a magus and a person. Any future built on Shinji's blood would be forever tainted.

This boy before him presented an opportunity that was unlikely to occur again. Before him was the key to both winning the next Grail War and revitalizing the Makiri line.

Yes, it seemed that young Sakura's marriage prospects had just radically altered.

Now the boy just needed to be trained.

* * *

Pain.

Sakura's world was pain, and screaming, and worms.

Pain.

For the last three days she'd lain in this pit, being devoured inside and out by her new grandfather's worms. Her body and mind had been wholly violated in ways the five year old didn't even know possible. She'd been screaming for so long it was no longer even a conscious action.

The pain never ended. Even after three days of exposure the pain didn't dull. Every erratic pulse brought a new wave of fresh, unfamiliar pain throughout her body. It was as if the worms were entertaining themselves by devising new ways to inflict pain on her and shatter her mind.

She barely even twitched when she heard the clack of her grandfather's cane descending the steps towards the worm pit.

Perhaps before all of this, the sound might have inspired hope of a reprieve, but not anymore. She was broken. Instead, she just laid there dully while the sound drifted closer.

"You've done well, granddaughter, more than I expected than of you," came her grandfather's rasping voice, "As congratulations, I bring both good news and a surprise."

Over the chittering of the worms, she heard the heavy thump of something meaty being dropped on the stone floor next to her grandfather.

"I've brought you a playmate, dear. Isn't that wonderful?" he sneered. With a lazy shove of his foot, the boy fell into the pit next to her and the worms dove into him with glee. He screamed and writhed in pain as the worms ate their way inside him.

Zouken looked on in obvious sadistic delight at seeing his familiars at work, "Also, the good news is that once you're both accustomed to the worms, your 'lessons' with them will be reduced to weekly. Instead, young Harry here will take your place every night."

The tapping of the cane began departing back up the stairs.

"Do sleep well," Zouken tossed over his shoulder as he departed, barely audible over Harry's cries of agony.

With her grandfather's departure, Sakura glanced over to the newcomer in the pit. Their eyes met at the same time, and she watched as he seemed to, through a concentrated effort, stop screaming.

Green eyes met purple, and a single hand grasped Sakura's.

She stopped screaming as well.

* * *

Twelve years later, two lovers lay in post-coital bliss.

A gasping Sakura shifted herself further into Harry's arms as he trailed his fingers through her beautiful violet hair. He was breathing heavily as well—a result of their fifth round that day.

An interesting fact of Zouken's crest worms was that they had almost inverse effects on men and women. In men like Harry, they fed on various parts of the body and produced prana in return. Since Kariya had needed to be taken from an untrained magus to a master ready for the Grail War in a matter of months, Zouken had more or less let his worms have their way with him. With Harry, however, Zouken was taking his time to avoid unnecessary damage.

Harry glanced down ruefully to his emaciated leg as he thought of this.

Despite Zouken's 'restraint', the worms had severed most of the nerves in his right leg, rendering it little more than useless flesh. The leg was atrophied, and Harry doubted that he'd regain usage of it even if he could remove the worms and heal it. The other sacrifice had been his left eye as the worms ate the set of nerves connecting it to his brain. He'd had to steal some research on gemcraft from the Tohsaka's in order to craft a replacement.

From a roughly round emerald, he'd modified it to both resemble his functioning eye, and enchanted it with the same rituals that enabled a magus to see through the eyes of their familiars, along with a few other minor tweaks.

What took careful management was his prana capacity. Whenever his body was deprived of the prana that the worms liked to bask in, they grew agitated and would start nibbling on him. If left deprived, their attacks would grow more malicious and start doing irreparable damage.

In a woman, like Sakura, the worms had something of the opposite effect. Sakura's worms were mostly passive as they slowly accumulated prana. When her body had enough prana in it to incite the worms, they would release a powerful aphrodisiac into her bloodstream. It had caused her great... distress around the time she'd turned thirteen, so Harry had taken it upon himself to... reprieve her.

' _Although,'_ Harry thought as he traced her naked form with his unoccupied hand and she let out a satisfied purr, ' _it's not exactly a great sacrifice...'_

Thus, they performed their little ritual at least once a week. Sakura would transfer her accumulated prana into him through this tantric ritual, and Harry would store the transferred prana into his worms to both satisfy them and tap into later should he need it.

Through this cooperation, both kept their worms pacified and constrained.

Of course, Harry thought as he finally caught his breath, sometimes the aphrodisiac took quite a while to wear off. He was reminded of this when Sakura slid back on top and smothered his lips with her own.

Harry was glad to reciprocate.

* * *

After another two rounds, Sakura let Harry off. Weekends like today were some of the only times Harry could get some sleep free of school or the worms he'd have to face tonight. Thus, with his final climax, she'd given him one final long, passionate kiss and asked him to get some rest before tonight. He'd happily obliged as his head plopped onto the pillow almost instantly.

She smiled, looking down at him, before catching herself guiltily.

She didn't deserve to be happy, especially not about this. With a sigh, she slid out of the bed and padded over to the bathroom, where she drew herself a hot bath.

As she soaked in the steaming water, her guilt flooded her once again.

Sakura Matou loved Harry. It was a fact she'd known since he first took her hand in the pit. Through her shattered mind, a single beacon of light had shone in the form of Harry. Ever since that day, he'd become the focal point of her life. As far as she was concerned, the sun only rose in the morning and set at night because of Harry.

Once their grandfather removed them from the pit after two straight weeks, she'd done everything she could to show her gratitude.

When she first started going through puberty, the worms started... _reacting_ to her. At first, she'd tried to ignore it—to put it off, but eventually it had become too much for her to bear. Her body cried for Harry, but she couldn't bring herself to beg him for _that._ She feared letting him know just how filthy a person she was on the inside, unable to control her own urges. So, instead, she'd gone to Shinji, who had gladly obliged by ripping off her skirt and forcing her onto the bed.

She had screamed in surprise and apparently alerted Harry, because the next thing she knew Shinji was on the floor and Harry was raining blows on him. Once Shinji lost consciousness, Harry brought Sakura to one of the empty bedrooms, sat her down, and demanded an explanation.

Unable to contain herself, she had broken down crying and begged him to take her.

It sickened her to think that it had been the most wonderful night of her entire life. She had forced Harry to lay with a dirty, defiled thing like her and was _happy_ about it. Her only consolation was that he derived at least _some_ pleasure from it. He was certainly affectionate, and she tried to repay him by doing her best to please and pleasure him.

Worthless as it was, her body was really the only thing she could offer him apart from her love.

Two fingers slipped inside her unbidden at the thought of him, and she suppressed a moan. She didn't want to wake him before he'd have to return to the pit.

* * *

Later that night, Harry was brought back from his blissful unconsciousness by the telltale clacking of Zouken's approach. He suppressed a grimace as his sitting up agitated the worms of the pit. Looking up, he saw Zouken standing at the edge of the pit with Sakura next to him.

"Rise and shine, my boy," Zouken chimed with false cheer, "Today is a special day!"

The words brought a shudder to Harry. There was only one thing that could get Zouken this excited.

The Grail War.

He knew that it had been close by, of course. The old man had recently purchased the unique reagents for a summoning circle, and had doubled down on Harry and Sakura's lessons. Still, the knowledge that his end of the bargain with the decrepit worm was coming up did not put him at ease.

"Today marks the culmination of your last twelve years of training, my boy. Aren't you excited?"

"Of course, grandfather," Harry replied amicably. The way he saw it, the more civil he was with the worm, the less suspicion he would be under when Harry finally slipped a knife in those bony little ribs.

"Delightful," Zouken sneered, "The reagents for the summoning are in the workshop, along with a modified incantation for the summoning. I trust you won't _disappoint_ me?"

Harry smiled once again, "Of course not, grandfather."

Without another word, Zouken nodded and departed out of the basement.

Once the old man was gone, Harry limped through the worms to the staircase that allowed exit from the pit. He stopped at the stairs, and retrieved his cane from the hook it typically resided on during his 'rest'.

The cane itself was an unadorned thing, a simple matte black stick with a silver handle. Of course, Harry had deliberately designed it to be unimposing. The interior of the stick was where the real power lay. It was hollow, and its entirety had been painstakingly inscribed with the most powerful amplification runes Harry could get his hands on. In themselves, the runes increased the power of any magecraft he enacted using the cane as a mystic code by several orders of magnitude.

Additionally, the handle could be pulled from the cane in a pinch, which doubled as the handle for a dagger made from the same emerald as his eye. He was too crippled to make much use of the dagger in a straight up fight, but he'd been steadily filling both it and the crest worms with as much prana as he safely could over the years, often supplementing it with the prana given to him by Sakura during their _rituals_.

As much as he hated to admit it, the crest worms _were_ very effective magical crests. They not only functioned as artificial magic circuits, but they also served the same function as Tohsaka jewels in storing prana. Twelve years worth of power had built up quite the prana battery in the worms.

Still, the benefits weren't worth the toll they took on his body.

Regardless, with his cane in hand he limped up the stairs and joined Sakura to get started with the summoning.

* * *

In an empty room of the Matou basement that Harry had converted into his workshop, he and Sakura had just finished drawing out the ornate summoning circle. Sitting on Harry's desk was a note with a modified summoning incantation. Without knowing the original, Harry couldn't tell what the purposes of the changes were for.

After checking the circle for the fourth time, Harry leaned on his cane and straightened his back. It was rather sore from hunching over so much.

He took one final, cursory examination of the circle to ensure that _nothing_ was wrong with it. The thought of Zouken's reaction to him failing the summoning was less than pleasant.

With a quick jerk, Harry pulled the handle free from his cane and the emerald dagger attached to it. He shifted his weight onto his left leg, and with the knife he sliced an even cut across his palm before replacing the dagger in the cane.

The air in the room heated as Harry activated his circuits and began enriching his blood with prana.

He extended his hand, allowing blood to steadily drip onto the circle.

" _For the elements silver and iron. For the foundation, stone, and the archduke of contracts. For the ancestor, my great master Schweinorg. Close the gates of the cardinal directions."_

Each drip of blood caused the circle to pulse with prana. Harry felt the worms shift slightly in response to the circulation of prana.

" _Come forth from the Crown, and follow the forked road to the Kingdom._ "

Harry's veins bulged as the crest worms squirmed in agitation.

" _Fill. Fill. Fill. Fill. Fill._ "

With each repetition, Harry let loose another drop of blood.

" _Repeat five times. But when each is filled, destroy it. Set._

He gritted his teeth as the worms let known their displeasure at him using so much prana in one go.

" _Heed my words._ "

The light from the circle was increasing in brightness, almost difficult to look at.

" _My will creates your body, and your sword creates my destiny._ "

At this point, the prana draw from the circle doubled. Harry started drawing the stored prana from the dagger to compensate.

" _If you heed the Grail's call and obey my will and reason, then answer me._ "

A particularly painful surge from the crest worms made Harry twitch, but he persevered.

" _I hereby swear..._ "

His circuits were burning now with the amount of prana he was producing through them. He thought he smelled smoke.

" _That I shall be all that is good in the world_ "

One of the worms took an agonizing bite out of something in his spine, and he lurched forward to his good knee to keep from falling.

" _That I shall defeat all that is evil in the world_ "

His breath was coming in short gasps from the pain, and the worms were racing around his body excruciatingly.

" _But let chaos cloud thine eyes_. _Thou who art trapped in a cage of madness._ "

A pounding headache was setting in, and Harry's vision was getting blurry in his right eye.

" _And let thine step be soft, and thine ways unseen. I shall be the one to hold thy chains"_

The worms were screeching in their own pain now, and Harry felt them start eating him from the inside in their desperation to escape the drain he was placing on them. His vision flashed white from the pain as they started ripping through various nerves. His muscles spasmed but he managed to choke out the final line.

" _You seven heavens, clad in the three great words of power, come forth from the circle of binding... Guardian of the Scales!"_

* * *

 _During one of his first magecraft lessons with Zouken, Harry finally worked up the nerve to ask._

 _"Grandfather," he sighed exasperatedly, "I must ask. Why, precisely, are you training me in such a manner?"_

 _Zouken looked down at Harry with an expression reserved for particularly slow children._

 _"Tsk tsk my boy. Questioning you elders?" he sneered._

 _Harry glared back, but held his tongue. His new 'grandfather' had any number of ways to express his displeasure that Harry was not excited to have another run in with._

 _"Please," he pleaded sycophantically, "I just want to make sense of my role to the Makiri family."_

 _"Oh very well," the old man smirked benevolently, "I suppose it is time you understand you role in events to come."_

 _Harry listened attentively as Zouken detailed the history of the Grail War, culminating with a description of the outcome of the recent Fourth Grail War. Slowly, the information clicked._

 _"You want me to become the Makiri Master in the next Grail War, don't you?" he deduced._

 _"Good," Zouken crowed mockingly, "you're learning. I knew I made a good decision plucking you from those ruins."_

 _With this confirmed, Harry began thinking of ways to use this for his and Sakura's advantage. With an artifact like the Holy Grail in play, there were any number of ways for him to get out from under Zouken's thumb. Root, he could even just refuse to participate or deliberately throw it._

 _It seemed as if his poker face wasn't quite good enough for Zouken, as the man idly noted that, "Should circumstances conspire to prevent you from participating, I shall be forced to consider other options. Options like dear sweet Sakura..."_

 _An unspoken bargain was struck that day. In exchange for Harry's willing cooperation and victory in the Grail War, he and Sakura would be free to go their own way following it so long as they continued the Makiri line._

 _Of course, Harry didn't trust Zouken as far as he could throw him. As such, he'd been thinking up... contingencies._

* * *

Dwelling in the Throne of Heroes were a great many spirits of famous legends, many of whom were heroes.

One such spirit felt the call of the Grail. Typically he ignored such things as he had no regrets in life that he felt would be solved by the Grail, until something stopped him. It was the realization that the summoning was being performed without a catalyst. It meant that the Root of the World had taken the measure of the summoner's existence and decided that _he_ was the heroic spirit needed for the summoner.

Out of curiosity, the spirit looked further into the connection. The summoner was a boy, on the cusp of manhood. The boy was a protector, crippling himself for the sake of a young girl that he had to take care of from their sadistic grandfather.

As he felt out his summoner, his mind drew links between the boy and his own children.

The ones he'd been forced to _slaughter_. At the hands of that _witch._

He'd fallen to madness for most of his remaining life. Only in death had the red haze departed and he could truly look back on his life.

One particular aspect of the summoning he noticed was that it had been modified to summon a Berserker. He chuckled, despite himself.

Yes, he decided. He personally had no wish for the Grail, but this boy needed, of all the heroic spirits of the Throne, Heracles.

* * *

Dwelling in the Throne of Heroes were a great many spirits of famous legends, many of whom were _not_ heroes.

One such spirit was drifting in a trance through the blackness. She was still puzzling out where she had failed in life. It was too many times, she decided. She failed to meet the maturity of her peers. She failed to serve Allah. She failed to become Hassan-i-Sabbah.

And the worst part, she dies and finds out that it was all for _nothing_. The closest thing out there to Allah was Alaya, which was naught but a disembodied _force_ that kept humanity from dying.

All that faith, all that pain, all that struggling.

For nothing.

Her mind broke and she wept. Her faith, the pillar of her existence, had _shattered_ like so much dust in the wind.

Typically, this sort of pain and madness would drive one to take their own life, but even that option was denied to her. Thanks to her association with the Hassan-i-Sabbah, she was considered part of the legend and thus imprisoned eternally in this Throne of Heroes.

So she wept. Until she felt a tendril of... something reach out for her. Almost certain that it was an illusion, she reached out for it, and felt _him._ It was a man: brave, determined, and powerful. His magnificence covered her like a soothing blanket. She wasn't sure how, but she knew that he was calling out to her—specifically _her_. He was calling _her_ , out of all people across the void of death, to serve him. A new target called for her devotion. A new Master.

What could she answer but yes? The Master called for Zealot, and she would answer.

* * *

The circle erupted in red fire, but Harry could scarcely see it through the black that was encroaching in on his vision. He collapsed to the floor as he felt _two_ consciousnesses link up to his.

Six inches from the floor, he was caught by a pair of enormous hands. An invisible presence knelt before him.

Harry lost his grip on consciousness.


	2. Chapter 2: Awakening

**Welcome back, everyone, to A Broken Wizard and a Broken Magus. Now, before you all start lining up to kill me, let me explain. A great number of delays got in the way of this story, including a major hospitalization. I was out with some friends of mine and ended up drag-racing some other friends through a gated community. They managed to dodge the concrete guard house, we didn't. I spent about two months in the hospital missing half a foot. I'm pretty much fine now, as are my friends, but I ended up with some major skin grafts and a reconstructed heel, but that was the largest contributor to the delay. That, and it's really hard to write on painkillers.**

 **Hopefully, that won't happen again. I have the rest of the Grail Arc outlined, so writing should be relatively regular until its end.**

 **Now, for reviews:**

 **Amorphis760: I think you touched on most of the points I wanted to fix in this story: his age, his godlike marysueness, and his overcomplicated revenge. The romance should come across a bit less cringy with them being mature enough to understand those kind of feeling, the harem has been significantly scaled down, Harry has been given more vulnerabilities, and I've given the Potters a much more understandable reason to leave him with the Dursleys.**

 **MWkillkenny84: Aye, put a lot more consideration into what Harry can and can't do before I started writing this. I blame FG for most of that stuff, as my writing style and tone didn't really mesh with the plot. Harry's not quite going for a Tom Riddle Jr. Jr., but he is indisputably one ruthless motherfucker. Sakura's sort of his morality pet, but otherwise there are very few things he wouldn't do in pursuit of a goal. Especially something like her protection.**

 **guisniperman: The reason Sakura isn't pregnant is that neither Zouken nor Harry wanted a baby to serve as a potential distraction or weakness in the upcoming Grail War. Name one proper magus in Nasuverse that wouldn't kidnap a baby and use it as a hostage during the Grail War. Zouken is confidant enough in his odds of winning the war that he decided it was worth the risk to abstain from creating an heir.**

 **Thunder Dragon: Like I said to MWkillkenny84, Harry may eventually develop something resembling a conscience, but he is a magus, was raised a magus, and the word "nice" is only in his vocabulary because of Sakura. Now, for your questions, 1. The harem has been severely stripped down to *spoilers* Sakura, Rin, Assassin, Saber _Alter._ *spoilers* The reason for the fourth is that she was basically who I was writing anyway, and with the way I've altered the universe it makes sense that she would be summoned. 2. Harry's eye isn't much of an issue for him, and his leg has been out of commission for a _long_ time. Even if he got it fixed, he barely even remembers how to use it. That said, I have something in mind that he might use as a workaround. Perhaps I should have made it cleared, but Sakura has no taint beyond the worms. Zouken originally used the Grail fragments to help get Sakura on a level with other magi, but with Harry he didn't need that. They're still buried under Fuyuki. For now. That Saber/Berserker fight is coming, trust me. 3. Harry is an Average One since wizards don't really have any elemental restrictions. Instead, like wizards, he just has an affinity for certain types of magecraft and a weakness in others. He's good at alchemy, formalcraft, and runecraft, passable at material transmutation, and awful at spiritual evocation and its related fields.**

Chapter 2: Awakening

Harry woke up feeling strangely... empty. Pain was there, of course, but that was unimportant— he was used to pain. What disturbed him was the feeling of uncomfortable _lightness_ , like how one would feel after passing out and waking up in a bathtub full of ice. It was as if his body was missing one or two minor organs—disconcerting.

After a moment, he recognized two forms hovering over him. The first was familiar, the purple hair giving her away even through the haze.

The second was significantly less so. With a concentrated effort, he forced his vision back into focus. Immediately, he realized one of the problems. His left eye was out of commission. It made sense, he supposed. The summoning ritual had tapped him out, including the minor amount of prana required to keep the link between his artificial eye and his brain functioning.

Something was off about that, he dazedly realized. A summoning with the Holy Grail's support shouldn't have required that much energy. In the last war, one of the Masters hadn't even been a magus and he'd managed a summoning. If anything, the summoning should have been effortless for him. Between his impressive natural circuits and the worms, he'd be able to give some of the lesser Dead Apostles a run for their money.

So why had the summoning nearly killed him?

An immediate answer came when he looked past the concerned face of Sakura to view his Servant.

Then he looked up.

And up.

And up.

A titanic mass of ebony muscle hovered menacingly over Sakura, holding a crude sword in its enormous hands. The second he made eye-contact with the Servant, its focus locked onto him with laser precision and the incomprehensible rage and bloodlust that had been simmering in the back of his mind clawed its way to the forefront. Oddly though, he could feel that none of it was directed at him.

Instead it seemed almost... concerned. Despite the raging tide of emotions being thrown at his consciousness, he got the distinct impression that the giant was concerned for him.

It was an odd sensation.

Sakura saw him stir and tried to take a step closer, but the giant let loose a threatening growl that reverberated throughout the room and she shrunk back with a small squeak. Harry tried to sit up, but the second his spine flexed white filled his vision and he fell back down gasping in pain. The worms had definitely done damage to his spine.

He saw Sakura shift in preparation to approach him again, but another growl had her scrambling back. The titan stood over him like a vicious dog guarding its master.

Master...

Right. He was a Master, and this was his Servant, it seemed. A Berserker. Zouken's addendum to the summoning incantation made sense now.

"-e's hurt!" he heard Sakura cry as he finally became cohesive enough to understand speech. "I can't heal him if you won't let me near!" Her legs were trembling, but otherwise she stood her ground. Harry almost smiled at seeing her stand up for her; then reality snapped back into focus. He couldn't move, and with his Servant keeping Sakura at bay that was unlikely to change.

He tried speaking to call the Servant off so that Sakura could heal him, but even that sent shoots of pain through him. He noted alarmingly that the pain didn't seem to reach certain section of his body. In fact, they were rather numb.

After a moment, he realized that the tide of murderous thoughts coming from the Servant stemmed from the transference of conscious derivative all Servants shared with their Masters. Convenient, he supposed.

" _Berserker,_ " he tried hesitantly over the mental link, " _Stand down_."

The giant's gaze latched onto Harry once again, and he got the impression of consent. It let loose one last threatening growl towards Sakura before lowering its weapon and astralizing.

Immediately, a vast quantity of the pain disappeared. Supporting a Servant like Berserker on burnt out circuits was a bad idea, Harry decided.

After a wary glance towards the area Berserker had once stood, Sakura dashed over to Harry and started fiddling with her ring. She'd never had the same skill at mystic code creation as him, so he'd made a general amplification one for her in the form of a ring and gifted it on her fifteenth birthday. He didn't think she'd taken it off since then.

Harry was still slightly fuzzy as she fussed over him, but he did notice the magical circle Sakura was forming over him. Internally, he was relieved. Sakura's specialization was curative magecraft. If anyone could fix him after such a disastrous summoning, it was her.

He did wonder why there was still what felt like a minor tap on his od even with Berserker astralized, but he faded back into unconsciousness before he could reach any sound conclusion.

* * *

 _Assassin knelt next to her Master as the girl began to work some foul sorcery on his prone body. Her first instinct was to kill the wench for her impertinence, but the Master seemed to consent to it and the magic appeared benign._

 _It was a good thing too; she had refrained from materializing due to the obvious strain the black giant was putting on her Master. To manifest even briefly so that she could slaughter the purple haired one would harm the Master. Assassin would not allow that. Even with both of them astralized, she could feel the prana coming from her Master and it was weak. Although, that was to be expected. He had called her back from death to serve him. It would strain anyone._

 _So she would wait until her Master was recovered, and if she judged this girl's abilities correctly that would only take a day or so—heretics had their uses after all, it seemed._

* * *

Sakura dabbed a cool cloth on Harry's forehead as he lay feverish in bed. She'd trained extensively in healing magecraft in preparation for the tournament, but it wasn't helping. Harry had overstrained his circuits during the summoning, and the crest worms that typically supplemented his prana had been utterly drained. They wouldn't be producing anything for quite a while.

 _Useless._

Under normal circumstances she might be able to fix this with one of their... rituals, but Harry was in no condition for those sorts of activities. She ashamedly supressed a small feeling of pleasure at the thought of those _exchanges_.

 _Whore._

The worms under her skin shifted in response to her arousal, and she had to bite her lip to keep from moaning in both pain and pleasure.

 _Shame._

There was nothing more she could do for him here. His recovery was entirely up to him now.

* * *

 _Assassin lay in vigil over her Master's resting form. The purple heretic had departed by this point. Tears had been in her eyes, but Assassin cared little for any but her Master. As she stood at attention by his bedside, she contemplated how best to serve him. She had been infused by the summoning with knowledge of her purpose here_ _—a heretic tournament for a heretic artifact. Why her Master was involved in such an ordeal was beyond her understanding, but she knew innately that her greatest duty was to help him win it._

 _But how to do that?_

 _She knew that at the end of the tournament she would be dismissed back into that hellish oblivion. She couldn't let that happen, no. She had to prove her worth, her usefulness to her new Master. She couldn't let herself be discarded._

 _She would prove herself, she decided. The Master had yet to acknowledge her, so she would prove herself by being the ultimate assassin: a Servant of such subtlety that not even he was aware of her._

 _Yes, then he would accept her and love her and never abandon her. He wouldn't care that she'd never become the Old Man of the Mountain. He wouldn't care that the position had been given to the Hundred-Faced Hassan. He would see that none could match her power, her skill, her devotion._

 _He would be everything Allah hadn't been..._

* * *

A wide smirk stretched across Zouken's face as the fruits of his labor ripened.

His only displeasure came from the knowledge that his attempt at modifying the summoning ritual had proved largely unsuccessful. The idea had been to summon a Berserker-class Servant with the naturally ingrained stealth and versatility of an Assassin-class Servant, combining the best attributes of both; however it seemed that the Grail would not be so easily manipulated like it had been last time, and had nearly killed the boy for his efforts.

How he wished he'd been successful, though. That useless excuse for a magus Kariya's chief undoing had been his personal weakness, and that his Servant had been the single least-subtle thing in the city. It had stolen a bloody _fighter jet_ in its recklessness.

Of course, it was necessary for Harry to summon a Berserker; any Servant but the most mindless one might possess some Noble Phantasm or special skill that would allow his young grandson to, pardon the pun, _worm_ his way out from Zouken's control, but at the same time he'd wanted to negate the weaknesses of a Berserker by grafting the capabilities of an Assassin to it.

A silver-lining would have to make due, it seemed. At least the Servant under his grandson's control was an _incredibly_ powerful Berserker, and seemed instinctively protective of its Master. It would go a long way towards controlling the beast—another one of Kariya's problems.

The situation was not as ideal as hoped, but it would suffice, and Zouken was content to sit back and take his hands off the strings until his interference became necessary.

* * *

When Harry awoke, the emptiness was still there, which he still couldn't identify, and the pain had returned. He tried to reflexively flex his circuits, but they were still eerily numb with the exception of that out of place patch of twenty-five along his right arm. They were certainly sore, but didn't seem strained in the least. The worms remained, however, if in such an exhausted state that they weren't moving.

Although, it was good that the worms had remained, for the moment at least—they were necessary for his strategy in this war.

As he moved, he felt the uncomfortable stickiness of dried sweat cling to his body, and decided that a shower would be prudent before all else.

The hot water did wonders for the parts of his body that he could still feel, even despite the off-putting unfeeling of his circuits.

He lifted an arm to gaze at the red marking of command seals, the mark of Master and Servant, and the ultimate tool of a Master in the Grail War and for a moment let himself revel in his success. He had done it! Fourteen years of preparation, fourteen years of torment and training, and he had summoned Berserker, indisputably the most powerful Servant in the War.

An unfamiliar pain in his left arm distracted him from his moment of glory, and he looked at it more in irritation than actual discomfort.

He looked right at a second set of command seals.

This... wasn't right. This shouldn't happen, unless Zouken's little modification to the summoning ritual had gifted him a second set of command seals, in which case he might have to thank the old worm.

...

...

...

Right after he befriended Altrouge Brunestud, of course. He chuckled to himself at the image.

Still, it would require some looking into, but with his circuits in their current state he'd be lucky if even something as simple as Structural Analyzing _only_ sent him back into his little coma.

Speaking of which... he needed to make it a priority to pay Sakura a visit as soon as possible. She'd obviously done her best to stabilize him, and knowing her she was agonizing over everything she hadn't been able to do for him. The last thing he wanted was her to suffer on his behalf, which was precisely what she'd be doing if he didn't explicitly forgive her.

With a sigh, he turned off the shower and stretched. He was momentarily caught off guard by the pain—he'd been accustomed to his current set of worms for years, but there seemed a gap, something off. Nausea flooded him and he stumbled out of the shower just in time to retch into the nearby toilet.

He wavered, spitting the remaining metallic bile in as well. His left eye was still burnt out, but it didn't take two eyes to see that his expulsion had been red with blood. As he focused momentarily on it, however, something caught his eye: poking ever-so slightly out of the waste was a crest worm.

A dead one.

Conclusions could be drawn from that, he imagined, but his head was swimming too much to contemplate it to any meaningful degree.

Shaking his head, he popped open the medicine cabinet and downed a handful of ibuprofen tablets. He craved something that would fully numb his pain, but he needed his head clear; so he settled for taking the edge off. Once he'd dried off, he grabbed his cane from it's hook on the wall. With its much-needed support, he started making his way towards his workshop.

* * *

Sakura stared sullenly at the wall of Harry's workshop. It was where she always went when upset, and it had always worked before.

But not now. The stone walls of the workshop now felt almost hostile after her failure to their Master, and Sakura couldn't help but agree with them.

When she'd first been adopted into the Matou family, she had possessed absolutely no interest in thaumaturgy beyond that which would be required for her upcoming role as the Matou representative in the Grail War.

And then Harry had come along, saved her, and taken her place in the Grail War. Of course, _he_ had taken to the study of magecraft like a duck to water, and Sakura's rampant infatuation had led her to follow. She would always follow him, she knew, regardless of the endeavor. The workshop Harry built became their sanctuary. Inside its walls, there was no Zouken, no Grail War, no worms.

Just Harry, Sakura, and magecraft.

And now she'd ruined it. She had spent so much time studying healing and support magecraft, and she had been _powerless_ to cure Harry from his pain. It was alright happening to her, she was already a dirty, tainted thing, but to allow suffering on Harry, her savior, her light, her _life._

It was a failure of the highest order, and the very structure knew it.

"I figured you'd be here."

Sakura whirled around to see Harry standing in the doorway, leaning against his cane. His kind smile only made her turn away in shame. That smile shouldn't be used on her. That was a smile of love, affection—things she didn't deserve. She heard him sigh, and tears started welling up.

"It's not your fault," she heard him lie, the words were there but they did not alleviate her guilt, "you did everything right. There was nothing else to be done."

He was only telling her these things because he didn't want her to feel guilty. He was simply too kind to let her punish herself. It was the same reason he slept with her.

Pity.

Another exasperated sigh sounded from behind her, and she heard the clicking of his cane as he approached; but she couldn't bring herself to look at him. She couldn't bear to see his beautiful eyes stare at her—eyes that she _knew_ hid accusation and scorn.

All deserved by her.

She let out a gasp of surprise when his lips touched her neck, and an electrified shiver coursed through her body. The worms writhed in anticipation as her arousal grew.

" _It's really not your fault,_ " he whispered right into her ear, _"But I know words aren't going to convince you of that. Still,_ _I find myself in need of some prana while my circuits heal."_

Her legs felt weak as she melted into his grasp. All the guilt in the world couldn't ruin this feeling for her. He spun her around and captured her lips in his own, his tongue forcing his way inside her surprised mouth. He'd been passionate in bed before, but never outside one of their rituals. Still, she was swept away into a world of bliss as she closed her eyes and let him dominate her.

After several blissful seconds, the feeling retreated and she opened her eyes to find herself staring directly into Harry's. The emerald depths, even the artificial one, held no accusation, no obligation, no resentment; just affection, care, and concern.

He smiled, and she fell for him all over again, " _So, how's about you help me with that?_ "

* * *

 _Assassin felt anger boil inside her. Anger and confusion. She was at a crossroads and she didn't know what to do._

 _On the one hand, this heretic had taken her Master's unconscious form and failed to return it to it's holy, pristine condition as her duty seemed to be. She wanted to flay the girl alive for her failures, slowly, so that her Master could watch._

 _Then he would praise her and love her, like her former false god never had._

 _On the other hand, her Master clearly had feelings for the heretic. His first priority upon getting himself presentable had been to reach her, forgive her, and assure her of her innocence._

 _Then he had lain with her._

 _It had thrown her for a loop, to be sure. She had been poised to follow through with her function as her Master's slave and protector, but then he had lain with the heretic with clear affection in his eyes._

 _Affection that should be hers._

 _No. Assassin was not a magus. She was a Servant. She would not seek beyond her position._

 _She did not understand much regarding magi beyond what the Grail conveyed, but she couldn't fathom a reason for her Master's actions, but at the same time she didn't want to displease her Master through a hasty decision._

 _More observations would be needed, she decided. She hadn't been acknowledged by her Master so far, and she would keep it that way until she decided whether it was in her Master's best interests for his apparent concubine to be slain._

 _Her Master's protection was to be raised above all else._

* * *

After a particularly satisfying session, Harry leaned back onto the pillow as Sakura burrowed into his chest. He could lay like this forever, but he had other obligations to fulfill. The infusion of prana he'd gained from Sakura had mercifully returned a slight feeling to his numb circuits, and with a twinge of pain his eye had come back on. He'd been very worried about that; the last time his circuits had gone numb from overuse, it had taken over a week for feeling to return.

That would mean certain death in the Grail War.

Unfortunately, as he took inventory of his body, he was still in no shape to foray into the field. So long as he had access to Sakura and his workshop he could keep Berserker on war footing, but that would keep him confined to the estate.

Still, a Servant, especially one as difficult to control as Berserker, needed supervision in public to keep the secrecy of magecraft maintained and to keep them out of traps. Ideally under these circumstances, he'd entrust someone expendable to accompany his Servant. But where to fi—

Oh yes...

He slid out from Sakura's grasp and started dressing himself once again. As much as the thought of walking into Shinji's room naked after freshly making love to Sakura amused him, it would be a poor negotiation method.

Although, he chuckled, this wouldn't be much of a negotiation...

* * *

Were psychologists permitted knowledge of thaumaturgical society, it would be easy for them to postulate that a child growing up in a family of magi without actually possessing circuits of their own would inevitably lead to a deep-seated inferiority complex, low self-worth, and possible depression.

It is fortunate then, that psychologists are _not_ allowed to study magi, as Shinji Matou would have blown this theory out of the water.

To anyone who had gone to Fuyuki High with Shinji, it was blatantly obvious within _seconds_ of meeting him that the _last_ conditions he suffered from were inferiority, depression, and low self-worth.

Nineteen years old now, and he was still seated in his ways, with one clear exception: Harry fucking Potter.

Harry scared the living bejeezus out of him, and with good reason.

He'd had a pretty good life before Harry came along. Despite being incapable of wielding the family magics, he was set up to inherit the Matou fortune and name. He had a pretty and oh-so obedient little bride in Sakura all ready for when they became adults. Once she bore a child, Grandfather had made it clear that Shinji was free to do what he wanted with her.

Oh the plans he had made...

And then that _fucking_ brat had come along and ruined it all. The carnal pleasures he'd been planning since puberty were dashed as it became clear that she had eyes only for Harry. Despite her blatant horniness, she hadn't even registered his advances. And believe him, they'd been written across the sky in golden fucking letters. He'd gone to Grandfather, of course, to explain that his future wife was not cooperating with his attempts at getting an early start to her _duties_ , when he'd learned of the final betrayal.

The little shit was getting both the Matou fortune _and_ Sakura.

 _His_ Sakura.

 _His_ birthright.

He stormed out, in a rage. Little thought went through his head but petulant fury as he slammed open Sakura's bedroom door. He didn't remember what happened after that. But when he woke up a fortnight later, his body certainly did. That was why even one as reckless as him took great care around Harry. The punk hadn't uttered a single threat or warning about staying away from him and Sakura.

Instead, he'd taken the far quicker route of _carving_ it into Shinji.

From that day, he understood exactly where he stood in the new household.

So long as he kept his head down, avoided Harry, and refrained from antagonizing Sakura he could get through his remaining childhood without being tossed out of the family like yesterday's trash. He would inherit nothing and would be forced to cope with his atrocious grades when it came to college applications, but he would keep his name and the influence it wielded.

The full implications of his new status hadn't truly struck home until after highschool. Without the Matou fortune, his grades _actually mattered_. Thanks to this, he was balancing his time between working as a grocer at the local supermarket and attending cram school in hopes of making it into a preferably out of town university. Any university away from Harry, really.

He still got chills down his spine and his hair stood on end whenever he was in the same room as Harry, though. He may not remember _what_ exactly the kid had done to him, but his subconscience certainly did, and it _feared_ him.

All of this should go a long way in explaining his behavior when the door to his small bedroom opened, and he found the Grim fucking Reaper himself leaning against the doorway.

Strolling in like he owned the place, which he technically did in a way, Harry surveyed the room with evident contempt. Even if he hadn't inherited the house yet, he certainly owned Shinji, and he made sure to remind his "older brother" of that whenever they encountered one another.

Shinji wanted to get angry at the intrusion, but he was too busy being afraid.

After several long moments of observation, Harry seemed to finally notice the bedroom's occupant. "Shinji!" the black haired youth greeted with a frigid smile, "Just the man I was looking for..."

With a nervous gulp and a concentrated effort to avoid shuddering under that cold, dispassionate gaze, Shinji smiled back, "Sure, sure, what-uhh-what can I do for you?" He knew better than to be anything but polite and cordial. As future heir to the family, Harry easily had the influence with Grandfather to see the disappointing and worthless grandson thrown out of the family. As much as it pained him, he couldn't show Harry anything but the utmost respect. Not when he was so close to freedom...

Harry was well aware of this, of course, as he made his way casually through a few of Shinji's things as he absentmindedly wandered about the room with a predatory grace.

"Well you see," he began, finally getting to the heart of the matter, "I recently find myself a participant in the Grail War, but with that I also find myself in something of a conundrum..."

Shinji could only watch in silence as Harry strolled over to the closed window and flung the curtains open to survey the darkening Fuyuki skyline. He gritted his teeth, "Sounds terrible. Of course, you know that if there's anything I can do to help, you need only ask..."

From his place at the window, Harry's eyes trailed over to Shinji briefly, before dismissing him and flicking back towards the window. A smirk briefly illuminated his face.

"Well, how could I refuse such a sincere offer? Now that you mention it, I think there is something you could do for me. You have to understand, I have summoned myself a powerful Servant indeed," he remarked without turning his gaze away from the scenery, "but with my current physical condition I am unable to take to the field in any significant capacity. So I have a little job for you Shinji..."

The blue haired teenager suddenly found himself staring down a pair of malevolent green eyes.

"You're going to be my familiar."

...

"You...you want me to be your _familiar_?" Shinji couldn't help but demand incredulously.

"Yes," Harry smirked, "or rather, _his_ technically." The former Matou heir's eyes followed the pointing finger and found himself staring down a titanic colossus of homicidal flesh that emanated a palpable bloodlust. When he dared make eye contact with it, it _roared_.

No, roared was the wrong word. Living beings roared. Humans and animals alike could make the sound. The sound the giant released was an unholy symphony of pure, refined murderous intent.

He felt absolutely no shame admitting that he fell backwards on his ass, scooting desperately away from the monster.

"Splendid," cooed Harry, "you're already getting along beautifully. That said, bear with me a moment. Berserker, hold him still."

"Wha—" was all Shinji managed to get out before one of the giant's monstrous hands tightened mercilessly around his arms and wrenched them behind his back and upwards, forcing him to his knees. His eyes watered from the pain, and widened as he look on in horror. Harry approached, leaning on his cane, and with a quick jerk removed the handle to reveal a green dagger.

"Of course," Harry drawled as he stepped around Shinji's back and alarmingly out of his sight, "for you to be his familiar, you'll need a binding between you. You understand, right?"

Shinji's reply turned to a groan in his mouth as he felt a slicing pain along his right arm.

Harry stepped back into his field of view, holding what appeared to be a leather-bound book in his hand that dripped blood.

"So thank Akasha that Zouken taught me this little trick, eh? Since Berserker _is_ a bit mad, I felt it only fair to give you a little keepsake to remind him that he's not to kill you without _explicit_ orders..." With this, he shot the giant a teasing stern glare.

By this point, Shinji was thinking some _extremely_ ungenerous things about Harry, and as if in response to his thoughts Berserker wrenched his arms further upwards and his eyes watered as he felt his shoulder dislocate.

Harry smirked, "Ah, yes. I knew I was forgetting something. You see, this Book of False Attendance," he hovered the leather book in front of Shinji, "it forms a sort of pseudo-bond between a Servant and a stand-in Master; like a normal contract, but without command seals."

Shinji was gritting his teeth from the pain of his dislocated shoulder. He just wanted this to end.

"So," Harry continued, "in short, your new best friend Berserker here has a direct link into your mind. Now, nominally this is to coordinate in the case of a fight, but who _knows_ what kind of interesting uses for it his mad little brain will think of for it. The mentally deranged are so inventive that way."

He let loose a fond sigh, "I almost pity you. Almost." He looked back up at the giant, "Let him go."

Immediately, his arms were released and he collapsed. His shoulder slammed agonizingly into the floor. As he writhed in pain, Harry knelt down, supported by his cane, and patted him on the cheek mockingly before stepping over him on the way to the door.

"I'll give you some time to get adjusted. You go out on patrol starting tomorrow night, yeah? Wonderful, see you then."

* * *

Across the city, a magus was having an equally difficult time with her new Servant. The moonlight that now shone freely through the new hole in her mansion's roof lent a certain emphasis to the glare marring Rin Tohsaka's face as she argued with her recently summoned Servant, the one responsible for the massive hole.

"Do I look like some bloody infant to lock away while the Grail War goes on? More than the war, the entire pride of the Tohsaka family is on the line!" Rin shouted, irritated at her stubborn Servant.

The white haired Archer looked her up and down appraisingly before shaking his head negatively in disappointment, "Look, I'm sorry kid, but this the safest way to fight the war. I don't know how much you actually know about the war, but Independent Action is kind of the Archer Class' thing."

"I know perfectly well the strengths and weaknesses of my own Servant," growled Rin.

Archer snorted, "Evidently _not,_ if you're still being obstinate about wanting to accompany me. Don't think of it as cowardice to remain behind, just... think of it as playing to your Servant's strengths. You don't see Assassin's Master following him into combat—"

"I will not be compared to some dishonorable renegade like the Master of Assassin!" Rin interrupted, face red, "Nor will I hide while my Servant fights! How would that look once we win the war? I'd be remembered as the Tohsaka heir that locked herself up in her house while her Servant fought the war all by himself! I'd be lucky to even get an interview at the Clock Tower!"

"Hold up a second," interjected Archer at seeing the greedy and despondent look in Rin's eyes, "Are you telling me that you're competing in the Holy Grail War, an ancient magical tournament renowned for its lethality and destructiveness, a fight for an artifact dating back to the birth of Christ, all of that, because it will look good on a _college application_?!"

Rin had the good grace to blush, before that blush turned angry as she remembered herself. She whirled back around on her Servant. Who did this jumped-up familiar think he was?

"I will not be talked down to like some child by _you_ Archer! What motives I have to compete in this tournament are of no consequence. Your only duty as a familiar is to obey. Or do I need to remind you of your place?" she threatened, brandishing her command seals.

Archer knew a losing fight when he saw one. "Peace, Master," he chuckled as he raised his hands in surrender, "I am yours to command."

"Good," Rin sniffed imperiously, sliding her sleeve back down, "See to it that you do not forget that any time soon."

Standing, she made her way over to a small closet and wrenched the stuck door open. After a brief moment of dusty rummaging, she victoriously emerged with a broom and dustpan, which she unceremoniously tossed towards Archer. The Servant caught them with ease, giving them a curious once over and raising an eyebrow at Rin.

She smirked, "You have quite a lot of cleaning up to do. Wake me at precisely eight A.M tomorrow morning, and this had all better be cleaned up by then."

Her piece said, she triumphantly strolled out of the room and went to bed. Archer's eyes followed her all the while, only relaxing once she was out of sight.

"Hmphh," he snorted, " _she_ never changes."

* * *

Having successfully cowed Shinji into compliance, Harry limped down to his workshop and started tinkering. He hadn't _enjoyed_ what he'd done to Shinji but—

No. That was a lie. Although Sakura was too kind to see Shinji for what he was, Harry had _thoroughly_ enjoyed making the vicious idiot squirm. And it wasn't like the rat didn't deserve it. After everything he'd done to Sakura, and tried to do to Harry, a dislocated shoulder and a bit of " _family_ _service_ " were a mercy. It was at least better than murdering him outright, although taking Harry's place as Berserker's Master until the proper one was recovered was still likely a death sentence.

At least the imbecile had a fighting chance now. Berserker certainly wasn't going to lose any fights, it was just a question of whether he would bother to protect Shinji while doing so.

A fresh wave of killing intent and a bloodcurdling growl from Berserker immediately gave a resounding negative.

Harry mentally shrugged. It wasn't exactly a tragic loss.

* * *

Across the city at a deserted wharf, a small and rusty boat drifted expertly into an abandoned dock. Lack of maintenance had let the sea start taking hold of the wooden structure, but it held as the ship bumped slowly against it. The groan released by the stressed wood echoed eerily throughout the dilapidated warehouses and cargo containers, but the place had long been abandoned.

In contrast to the salty, maritime visage of the ship, the first one to step off was a young lady of obvious aristocratic upbringing. Her porcelain features and white hair gave her the air of a china doll, and her finely tailored dress and sun umbrella stuck out harshly against her destitute surroundings.

"Are you _entirely_ sure it was necessary to dock here?" she called back at the ship. "It just seems a bit of an... ignoble start considering what we're undertaking."

From the enclosed steering section of the boat, another woman emerged—although her appearance was also youthful, the adjective "young" would be a grossly inaccurate statement. Like her counterpart, she possessed a certain aristocratic air, but perhaps "royal" was a more accurate description.

The second woman let loose an exasperated sigh, but otherwise spoke with no inflection, "We just spent an hour evading Japanese Coastal Guard in a stolen vessel used for trafficking humans, so no, I doubt we would have been welcome at any official dock. This harbor has been abandoned since the last war."

A muffled crying could be heard from the bowels of the ship. The first woman's eyes narrowed in disgust.

"Deal with that scum of a captain before we do anything else. The last thing we need is someone tipping off the competition."

"As you command," the second woman replied blandly, reaching out an grasping a black sword from nothingness. Without another word, she descended below deck. The muffled screaming rose dramatically in volume for a moment before cutting off with a disturbing silence.

Illya smiled.

* * *

Bazett Fraga McRemitz was _immensely_ satisfied as she drove her rented car away from the airport. It showed enough that her companion commented on it.

"For someone going into a war, you're rather cheerful, aren't you Master?" Lancer commented dryly from the passenger seat.

Bazett scoffed, "I have every reason to be. For once, an outsider in the war has the inside track..." She leaned forward against the steering wheel in anticipation, before looking back up sharply at her Servant.

"That a problem?" she demanded, a tad sharply, as she weaved through traffic.

Lancer held up his hands in a show of obescience.

"Please, don't mistake that for a criticism Master. It's pleasing to have a Master so... enthusiastic for battle."

The car drove on in silence for another minute before Lancer spoke up again, "So, what's this 'inside track' we're talking? Must be pretty good if you think it's going to give you a leg up in something as intense as the Grail War..."

"The Church's moderator," answered Bazett as she reached up to adjust the mirror, "Kirei Kotomine. He was a friend of my father. Helped him get back on his feet after getting exiled by the clan. He's been looking out for me since childhood. He's practically my godfather."

"Well well well," muttered Lancer, "I'm impressed Master. That _is_ quite the leg up if the moderator is family."

"Indeed. Not to mention, he also survived the last war, so he even has experience."

An hour later, the rented car pulled up in front of a small, pleasant little church. It was older than most of the buildings within view of it, but it was humble enough that it didn't stick out.

Looking at the church for a moment, she glanced back to Lancer. With some hesitance, she reached into her pocket and withdrew a large wad of Japanese Yen she'd exchanged.

"Servants aren't allowed at the moderator's base. Take this and hit up a bar or something. I just have to register and catch up with Kirei; see what sort of aid he can offer to us off the books."

With a greedy smile on his face, Lancer snatched the wad out of her arm and saluted, "Right Boss, just don't take too long. I haven't been on the material world in a _long_ time. I'm looking to kill something..."

His piece said, he astralized and leapt from rooftop to rooftop.

Once her Servant was gone, Bazett took a moment to compose herself before stepping up to knock on the door. Before she could do so, however, it swung open to reveal the face of kindly old Kirei, somewhat older than she last remembered him looking.

"Little Baz!" he cried, drawing her into a hug, "I thought I heard you out here! What brings you to Fuyuki?"

Bazett smiled back at him, "I don't think I'm quite 'Little Baz' anymore old man. And I think you know why I'm here."

Drawing back, Kirei sighed, "Yes, I guessed but I hoped I was wrong. This is a very dangerous endeavor you're involving yourself in. You know this, yes?"

The smile Bazett was sporting morphed quickly into a scowl, "Like I said, I'm not a child anymore. I fully understand the risks."

"Very well," he acknowledged solemnly as he turned to let her in the door, "let's get you registered."

As the door of the church swung shut, Kirei's eyes flashed dangerously.

" _But don't say I didn't warn you..._ "

* * *

From atop the Ryuudo Temple, the oldest structure in Fuyuki, stood two women, also the oldest in Fuyuki. Behind them, several former monks of the temple stood at attention like attendants. Their eyes bore no hint of life, just an animalistic hunger and a dull obedience.

The hooded woman's eyes were closed as she focused on tying herself magic to the ley lines beneath the temple. She could feel her Master's eyes on her, and shivered. Even in life, she had never come across one as... unsettling as her current patron.

After several moments she felt the magic coursing through the current below her attach itself to hers and she opened her eyes.

"It is done, Master."

Without comment her Master, a pink-haired woman whose every pore spoke of noble upbringing, turned and made her way to the courtyard in the center of the temple. The monks kept in perfect pace with her, moving like puppets on strings.

The sunset cascaded perfectly through the courtyard, reflecting off a large European style bath that had been constructed in its center. It was empty for the moment.

Caster's Master extended her arms, and the enthralled monks immediately began undressing her with delicate care. When they were finished, they instantly turned on their heels and marched back into the building. Right as the Master settled herself into the large bath, the monks returned—dragging several scores of bound and gagged young women with them.

The woman's eyes glanced over them slowly, appraising them. Eventually, she decided they were up to her standards and nodded.

"Fill it."

With a series of wet crunches the monks tore into the throats of the kidnapped women with vigor, before dragging them over to the bath and holding them upside down to drain them. Soon, the bath was filled and the Master relished in the sensation. Her gaze settled over the skyline of the city, visible through the entrance to the courtyard.

"Beautiful, is it not?" she remarked.

"So it is, Master," replied Caster. She felt a sudden chill. She knew what was coming.

"And yet..." she sighed, "I feel so very bored."

Caster grimaced. Few things would entertain a creature of her Master's kind, and none of them were pleasant.

"I want music," Caster's Master proclaimed, "I want to hear music as I bathe."

Caster glanced at her Master sideways from her place beside the bath, "Music, Master?"

"Conduct a song for me, Caster," her Master ordered, sweeping her blood-stained arm out over the city, "Make them _sing_ for me."

Caster understood.

The feeding began.


	3. Chapter 3: A Broken Priest

**Welcome back readers to A Broken Wizard and a Broken Magus: The Rewrite! Apologies for the wait, as always, but I feel that it was worth it in quality. I spent a lot of time on this chapter making sure that I was characterizing everyone well and outlining the rest of the Grail Arc. It was time well spent, trust me. I quite like this whole rewrite thing. It lets me take characters I just kind of tossed away in the original, like Kirei, and turn them into more meaningful and memorable characters.**

 **Just a point of clarification, since like half the reviews mentioned it: CASTER'S MASTER IS _NOT_ ELIZABETH BATHORY. It's not really a spoiler since I mention it this chapter, but she's a canon Dead Apostle named Rita Rozay-en. As for why she's in the War, you'll see.**

 **Review Bonanza!**

 **Lu Bane Na: With the exception of Assassin and Rider, all Servants will be canon, and I've already decided on who I'm replacing Rider with. Sorry.**

 **camdawg: Thanks for pointing that out. Fixed it. No, neither are in the pairing anymore. Sorry to fans of Medusa and Medea, but I was simply having too hard of a time writing them. It doesn't help that neither really gets the screen time they deserve in Fate/Stay Night**

 **AraelStannis: I'm grateful for the praise. Like I've said before, I feel that I have grown enough as a writer to turn this story into what it should have been from the start, and it's fantastic to know that I'm succeeding.**

 **muratira: What I did for the harem was I picked all the characters I would have liked to be in it, and then just started cutting them down until there were four. Unfortunately, neither Medusa nor Medea made the cut, as I personally found them difficult to write properly. Illya will get a happy ending, but don't hold out for Medea.**

 **PikaMew1288: Well yes, the whole One Punch Man thing was kind of the problem. One common piece of writing advice that I neglected in the original was that you bond and sympathize with a character the more they struggle. Harry in the original may have been a badass, but I also found him boring (and I _write_ him). Hopefully, this one comes across as a lot more... human.**

 **Generatedname: Always good to see a review from you. You are correct that Illya's Servant is Saber Alter, and how she came to summon her is elaborated a bit more in this chapter. Yeah, I feel that fixing the ages makes the romance far less awkward to write, and thus I can devote more attention to ensuring that the romance between the two is just ever-so-slightly off. The relationship looks normal on the surface, but both partners have very warped perspectives on it. Regarding Illya, yeah, once again this chapter delves a bit into Illya's background and psyche. While the Grail War will not last forever, I'm considering making the Hogwarts Arc much more grounded in Nasuverse as well, and not just completely abandoning it come time. As for Caster's Master, I think you will be very happy.**

 **.3950: Illya's Servant is Saber. I didn't create the homunculi largely because, while they made decent harem padding, they ultimately had very little actual character and were superfluous to the story. Medea will not join the harem, and Saber Alter is not really one for nicknames.**

 **Akuma-Heika: Akasha is 'technically' the closest thing to an Abrahamic God, but is more a disembodied, impersonal force than a personality. What Assassin wanted most of all upon death was validation, and Akasha couldn't give her that.**

 **Thunder Dragon: First, this is more a PM thing than a review. Second, while I may take a one-shot challenge here or there, I'm not a Sailor Moon fan. Thanks for the suggestion though.**

 **Axcel: I can understand how that would grate on some nerves to a reader, from the character's perspective it's very understandable. If you put Shirou Emiya in a room with a Potterverse dragon, he would shit his pants about it being a phantasmal beast (because from his perspective, he wouldn't be able to tell the difference) until he actually fought it. Then, he would understand the difference. But until taught otherwise, most Nasuverse characters would tread _very_ carefully around a Potterverse dragon or somesuch**

Chapter 3: A Broken Priest

" _I don't have a lot of time sweetie._ "

Illya strolled through the crowded streets of downtown Fuyuki with all the grace and poise of a foreign dignitary. Normally, one as sheltered as her would be terrified by the presence of so many strangers, but she was shadowed by a black figure—a blonde woman clothed in a black gothic dress. Anyone who made eye contact with her guardian received a scowl so fierce it sent lesser men fleeing.

 _A pounding on the heavy oak door punctuated his statement. "There's something I need to tell you._ "

With a childish wonder, she observed the various store mascots hawking wares from outside stores and marveled at the smells of the food being sold by nearby street vendors. She wanted to try it all.

 _"The Einzberns. They're lying to you._ "

Illya turned back to her Servant, "Which do you think we should visit first, Saber?"

The black knight's scowl turned on Illya, "We haven't any money besides the pittance you hypnotized that salaryman into giving you. We have more important tasks at hand." Illya scowled back, sticking her tongue out childishly.

"Well we're never going to experience the world with _that_ attitude..."

" _I didn't kill your mother. The Holy Grail did. And it's killing me too._ "

"We're not here to 'experience the world,'" snapped Saber, "We're here to win a war. And destroy a Grail."

Illya pouted at seeing her Servant's stony expression, "There's no reason we can't do both."

" _It evil, cursed. I was supposed to win it for the Einzberns but I had to destroy it instead. Now it's killing me._ "

A homeless man leaning against a wall extended a cup towards them. Neither acknowledged him.

After several seconds of sullen silence, Illya finally glanced back up at the silent Saber, "Well, what would _you_ have us do then?" she demanded.

"Secure accommodations," was the immediate reply.

" _The Einzberns, they hate me for that. They want to turn you against me and make you fight in the next war."_

As if on cue, both Illya and Saber's stomachs growled in sync. Perhaps a hotel, a bath, and some food _would_ be a good idea.

"Alright then," Illya suggested, "where would you suggest?"

Saber's eyes scanned the overhanging signs before alighting on one in particular.

" _I need to give you something._ " _From the other side of the barred door, cries of 'get a ram!' could be heard._

"There," Saber pointed, "The Royale Hotel."

A bout of hypnosis on a rather confused receptionist later, Illya was relaxing on a queen-sized bed. It had been a long day, and she was starting to doze.

 _Her father held his hands out, and a magnificent sheathe slowly appeared in his hands. It was quite possibly the most beautiful thing Illya had ever laid eyes on. Kiritsugu held the blunt tip against her chest, and she was amazed to witness it dematerialize into golden particles that flowed into her chest. Warmth filled her entire body._

 _"Never let go of that, do you understand?"_ _her father said seriously. "Never let them take it from you." Illya could only nod her head at her father's abrupt tone._

 _Kiritsugu's face softened, and he seemed to be the oldest person Illya had seen at that moment._

 _He pulled her close and laid a kiss on her head, "Don't let them make you into a weapon. Don't let them fill you with hatred."_

 _The door exploded inward and a group of the maids stormed in with halberds, followed by several other members of the clan barking orders. Her father didn't put up a fight as they beat him, nor when they were dragging him out of the room. Instead, he looked right at her, his forehead bleeding and his eye blackening._

 _"And above all else, never forget that I love_ you."

Illya snapped up in bed. While she was taking a moment to compose herself, Saber walked back in from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her body.

"Ah, good. You're awake. Now that accommodations have been arranged, our next priority is sustenance. Hunger is the enemy after all."

Her Servant's stomach chose this moment to make a noise not unlike an angry bear. Illya smiled.

"Sure."

* * *

Kirei Kotomine was looking over his newly acquired set of command seals with a child's curiosity. Most men would have been disgusted by what he'd done, but Kirei had always seen things differently than other people—mostly in that he saw other people as things.

Throughout the middle-aged priest's entire life, he had been plagued by a terrible... ambivalence. It had started when he was young; his father, an Executor, had raised Kirei as best he could, and loved him dearly. Kirei's problem, was that he never understood what his father meant when he called something "beautiful".

Then, one morning, he woke up and immediately understood it: his father wished for him to be beautiful. It was so simple, but Kirei didn't understand what beauty was.

He realized it suddenly—he was not beautiful. Whatever it was, it was not him. He was it's antithesis. Not beautiful. Not pure.

Broken.

So he tried hard, as hard as he could, to be pure and beautiful for his father. No matter what he tried though, it was never enough. He drove himself to more extreme methods, peeling his skin, ripping off flesh, dislocating his bones.

Nothing.

The only pleasure he could feel came from the pain of others, but he could not allow himself to indulge in that. He couldn't surrender. If physical pain would not cure him, he decided, then mental pain would.

He subjected himself to treatments, drugs, therapy, brainwashing. He fasted in deserts and meditated in temples. The only great epiphany he came across was that he simply could not feel the happiness of normal people.

Religion, he tried next. If pain would not cure him, perhaps he might find salvation in the Almighty. He threw himself to the task of becoming a great priest like his father with fervor. He adhered to the church's rules, followed the law, and lived in modesty but with no results. The church forbid immorality but once again the only conclusion he reached was the his pleasure could only be derived from immorality.

So he cursed God for making him the way he was, and that brought out the next great question that tormented him: why? Evil was the antithesis of the universe, so why had something like him been brought into it? Something that could only receive pleasure by being hated. Why was his existence a crime? And for what was he being punished?

Preaching did not work out for him, so instead he attended two more years of school, skipped two more, and enlisted as an Executor of the church. Unfortunately, it brought about little more pleasure than preaching had.

As a final bid, he sought about the simplest and yet most powerful of man's many indulgences: love.

The woman he chose was terminally ill, with only a few years left to live. To this day, he still isn't sure whether he chose her because of this or because she was the only one that could love someone like him back.

And she did. And he returned this favor by trying his hardest to love her as well.

They even bore a child together: a girl named Caren. But the closer Kirei got to them, the more he realized that the only happiness he was getting from the relationship came from his wife's suffering or his daughter's despair.

The more he tried to love them, the more he loved their pain. Claudia tried to teach him what it meant to love, tried to cure him. To her, he was a saint. She was faithful to him, and deeply understood his underlying anger at his existence. She did everything she could to fill the void in his soul.

To no avail.

Eventually, Kirei simply decided that his existence was some kind of mistake, and that it was best to disappear. Out of a sense of duty to his wife, he went to her to say goodbye.

"I could not love you," were his final words to her.

Lying on her death bed, little but skin and bones, she gazed right into his eyes and smiled, "No, you do love me." Then she pulled out her I.V. She had hoped that seeing her die would finally make him see, make him feel sadness, and with the accompanying loss he would understand love. She felt success when she watched the tears descend from his eyes and died in peace.

But Kirei did not feel sadness at her death. He could feel nothing for her. He wept at losing the chance to kill her himself, and derive what small pleasure he could from the act.

Kirei silently existed the room and ceased pursuing salvation altogether. He would never find it. Caren was turned over to his wife's relatives. He could not bear to raise her, not when he saw the barest hints of her sharing his distorted perception.

He thought for a long time about killing himself.

Life won out in the end, however, and instead he joined the Order of the Eighth Sacrament, finally filling his father's legacy. Three days later, he found a set of command seals burned into his arm.

In the ensuing events, Kirei encountered the first man who he understood: Kiritsugu Emiya. He possessed the same kind of _hollowness_ as Kirei. He could feel it.

He pursued Emiya with a feverish intensity, going so far as to use a command seal to keep his Servant from killing him. He wanted to meet the man, converse with someone who truly _understood_.

But then Emiya betrayed him. He thought Emiya had been like him, had understood, but he wasn't. There had been one key difference: Emiya had loved his family. Kirei's fellowship dried up and was replaced with a deep hatred and envy. Kiritsugu had what Kirei never would.

So Kirei took it from him.

He stole the man's wife and used her to summon the Black Grail in all its cursed glory. The two had fought in the sewers beneath Fuyuki, and during the course of the fight one of Kiritsugu's bullets finally found his heart. But the Grail didn't like that. It's tainted waters recognized one of their own and brought him back with a new, black, artificial heart.

Crawling from the rubble, he stumbled to the surface and beheld the Fuyuki Fire. Illuminated by the burning city and serenaded by the screams of the dying, he couldn't help but laugh.

He stared into the abyss of his soul, it gazed back, and he _laughed_.

...

...

...

A slow knocking on the front door of the church interrupted his inspection of his newly-acquired command seals. He checked his watch to confirm his suspicions: this was far too late in the afternoon for one of his parishioners. As he donned his vestiary and golden holy symbol, he also slipped a black key under his clothes.

He approached the door with caution, wary of the steady wooden tapping on the door. The set of command seals on his arm reminded him that he could always call Lancer to defend him if necessary, but he didn't want to recall his new Servant for something that might be inconsequential.

The rapping grew steadily more impatient, before a voice finally cried, "Oh by the forgotten fourth magic, open up old man! I don't know if you've heard, but there's a war on!"

All apprehension vanished from Kirei's form. With one hand, he pulled open the door—his face forming a sardonic scowl.

"Does it ever occur to you, my child, that even holy men must sleep?" he inquired with a raised eyebrow. Harry, dressed in slacks and a thick beige overcoat, merely grinned before limping his way past.

"Asleep? It's good to see you taking midday naps to keep up with us young folks, Father. Acting your age is an important part in accepting it."

The aged priest looked Harry up and down before raising another eyebrow, "Says the one with the cane."

Kirei couldn't help his lips as they twitched into a small smile—a genuine one, unlike that facsimile he'd put on for that Bazett pest. He'd met many people over the course of his life from the holiest men of the church to the vilest of Dead Apostles, but Harry was one of the only ones he'd met besides Gilgamesh that he truly _liked_.

As someone raised by that worm Zouken, it was no surprise that he shared a similar brokenness to Kirei. The key difference that intrigued Kirei, however, was that Harry's distortion was _artificial_. Like that Sakura girl, they had not been born the broken children that they were, they had been _made_ that way by a cold, systematic childhood of torture.

He'd recognized it in the two children from an early age, back when the two were in elementary school. Young Rin maintained a semi-close friendship with them, and they'd been introduced through her.

It was easy for him to see the hollowness in them.

From that day, he'd kept a close on them the way an anthropologist studies an emerging tribe. By themselves, they were but two broken children, doomed to follow the paths of himself or Kiritsugu, but _together..._ together they used one another as anchoring mechanisms. They kept each other grounded in sanity.

Fascinating to watch, really.

Despite himself, as he watched them grow, Kirei felt himself feeling somewhat... protective of the two children. Watching over them and making sure Zouken didn't go too far gave him the first satisfaction he'd ever felt that didn't involve causing suffering.

What frustrated him to no end was that he couldn't deduce _why_ though. He'd met others like himself, people like Kiritsugu or even Zouken himself, but he'd grown to hate the former and had always detested the latter.

So he kept the two children as close as he could without arousing suspicion.

Part of him wanted to just toss the pair in his basement like the others to keep them from disrupting the inner peace he'd found gazing at the Fuyuki fire, but something stayed his hand.

 _Something_ about them resonated with him, and he would make sure that they survived until he knew what it was.

Kirei swung the door shut behind him as Harry sat himself down casually in one of the many pews.

"Tea?" Kotomine offered. Gilgamesh may have drank him out of house and home on occasion, but he never touched his tea reserves. Harry shook his head politely.

"No, I won't be staying that long. Got a light though?"

The priest glanced down at the cigarette Harry had produced from within his coat and gave a disapproving frown. "Should one of your constitution really be smoking? And what does young Sakura think about this?"

Harry glared back, "Way I see it, I have very little downward potential. I'd be _lucky_ if cancer's what finally ends up killing me—and what Sakura doesn't know won't hurt her. Now have you got a light or not?"

Frowning, Kirei's gaze remained steady. "This is a house of God."

With a roll of his eyes, Harry stuck the cigarette between his lips and snapped his fingers. A small flame appeared between them that he used to light it. The sweet and pungent scent of spiced tobacco filled the air as Harry blew out a puff of smoke. A second later he was coughing into a small handkerchief he'd produced from his pocket. When he pulled it away, it was red with blood.

"Where is she by the way? Sakura, that is. It's rare that I see you without her somewhere in arm's reach."

Harry reluctantly dropped the cigarette on the stone floor of the church with a grimace and ground it out with the heel of his boot. "Back at the manor. Strictly speaking, I'm still supposed to be on bedrest. She doesn't know I snuck out."

"Which brings us to the heart of the matter," Kirei chuckled, "As much as the idea of you getting your beloved angry at you over a quick smoke and my delightful company amuses me, I imagine you have greater matters to discuss."

"Unusually blunt of you, old man," Harry pointed out with a smile, "I'm here to register Shinji as the proxy Matou Master for the Holy Grail War. Servant Berserker."

Kirei raised an eyebrow, "Shinji? Proxy Master? Do I even want to ask?"

"The summoning proved a bit more... strenuous than anticipated," Harry admitted honestly, "So I turned over Berserker to Shinji until I'm able to lead him in the field."

"And you trust me with this information? You are aware that young Rin is also competing in this competition yes? And that I'm her guardian?"

Rather than shrink back at the tenuous threat, Harry's smile just grew, "Trust? I like to think we have a relationship _built_ on mutual trust. I trust you to keep my secrets, just like you trust me to keep silent about the skeletons in _your_ closet. Or is it children in your basement? I can never remember."

Silenced reigned for a tense moment before Kirei smiled as if his pupil had passed a test. "I'm glad we have an understanding."

Harry smiled once more, but it faltered as he checked his watch and jerked unsteadily to his feet with a muttered curse, balancing on his cane.

"Lovely as this had been, I'm going to be late getting home. Do tell Rin I asked about her, yes?"

"Naturally. Were events not conspiring against it, I'd tell you to pay her a visit"

As Harry clacked his way towards the door, Kirei called after him once more, "Oh yes my child, one last thing."

With a quirked eyebrow, the young magus turned to regard his mentor.

"Good luck," he said honestly, "As moderator I'm not permitted to bet, but if I could, my money would be on you."

Of course, Kirei was no gambling man. When he placed odds, he made sure to shift them in his favor.

* * *

 _Assassin did not like this man. He felt wrong. Empty. His eyes were there but there was no life in them._

 _Still, she made plans to deprive him of it. It was her duty. But her Master also seemed to trust him._

 _She wanted to tear her hair out with indecision. She had to protect her Master, and the only way she knew how to do that was by slaughtering any who would threaten hiim. But she also had to please her Master, and killing both his concubine and apparent friend might displease him._

 _And he was a wise Master, a sage Master. He should be able to judge the intention of others, so he must have a reason to trust them._

 _She could not take the initiative and reveal herself unless she was absolutely certain that her target was a threat to the Master._

 _The blue-haired one would have made good sport. It was clear that her Master held no love for the boy, and the boy clearly hated the Master. She wanted to flay him alive and present his ruined form to her Master. Then he would love her and stroke her hair and caress her bod—_

 _No. She could not think such things about her Master. Normally she would flagellate herself for her sinful thought, were the prana used to automatically heal her injuries not drawn from her Master's mending circuits._

 _It was a moot point anyway. The one heretic she could safely purge had been forced into her Master's servitude and given a job important enough that his absence would be detrimental._

 _Although, it did give her an idea. The blue one would be going out with the ebony one to hunt her Master's enemies._

 _Why couldn't she go along?_

* * *

As Harry hobbled down the streets of Fuyuki on his way back to the manor, he couldn't help but note the sirens of a multitude of ambulances echoing throughout the city. He grimaced. They had been going since late last night and hadn't stopped since. This stank of thaumaturgy.

For such a brazen disregard for the secrecy of magecraft to occur so early in the war did not bode well for the casualties.

He made a note to move Caster and its Master to the top of Berserker's list. The Servant had a history throughout the previous wars of causing the most collateral damage in the search of power and advantage. He'd have to check the news to see if he could find out what was going on.

At the moment, however, he had no time for that. He was already late returning to the manor and the likelihood of him slipping back inside without Sakura's notice was growing thinner by the minute. He should have taken the car, he thought belatedly, but originally he had been worried that Sakura would notice the sound of it starting. But there was nothing to do now but put on as much speed as he could without aggravating his injuries.

Nearly out of breath, he closed in on the manor, hope swelling in his heart as he observed a noticeable absence of a wrathful purple haired magus waiting for him outside. Fishing his keys out of his coat pocket, he nearly snapped them off in the lock in his rush to get inside.

The lock clicked shut behind him as he entered the parlor and an ominous chill filled the air.

" _You're not in bed_ ," a feminine voice behind him pointed out with a terrifying sweetness.

Harry very slowly turned and greeted his betrothed with his most charming smile, hoping desperately that his nervousness didn't show.

"Ah, Sakura, dear. I was, uh, just stepping out to get the paper from that delightful little cafe down the street." With his free hand, he slipped his hand around to the back of his coat and projected yesterdays newspaper. He couldn't recall the exact contents, but hoped the front cover at least looked passable.

Calling his bluff, Sakura extended her hand and Harry handed it over with the resignation of one walking to his execution.

"Funny," she said with sugar, "it seems this was a faulty printing. Not only is it dated yesterday, but all pages excluding the first seem to be blank."

"I should get a refund," Harry joked, hoping to lighten the mood.

It didn't work.

With a casual gesture, Sakura unraveled the projection and seized his arm, dragging him bodily up the stairs with a surprising strength. The door to the bedroom they shared during their _rituals_ flung open before her and with none of her usual hesitance she stripped him and tossed him in the bed.

Once he was settled in, she wheeled over a hospital bed tray bearing a bowl of steaming broth and a spoon that she promptly thrusted into his hand.

"I really don't think—" Harry began before he was cut off by a glare that was positively _glacial_.

" _Eat,_ " his captor commanded him.

Harry did as he was bade without further complaint. She was putting on a strong front, but he could see that he had worried her and felt guilty. Registering for the war had been necessary, but there were other ways he could have done it without taking the excuse to stretch his legs.

He finished his broth in silence under her watchful eye, before laying his spoon down beside the empty bowl. Immediately, she moved to take it away, but he laid his hand on her own when it came close and looked up at her, sending a silent apology.

She locked eyes with him for a moment, before finally sighing and letting the tenseness leave her shoulders and caressing the side of his face with a warm smile.

"Can I get an actual newspaper by the way?" he quipped, "I need to check something, and besides, I think they owe me a free one."

Sakura nodded with a tinkling little laugh, "I'll drop by the cafe after I finish cleaning."

Her violet eyes flicker glacially once again, "But leave this bed between now and then, and I'll summon my own Servant just to keep you in it."

Harry took her worry for what it was and held his right three fingers up with a grin, "Scout's Honor."

* * *

It was less than an hour later that Sakura returned with a newspaper in hand and a look of concern on her face. Harry had kept his word and stayed in bed, but he was still worried.

"What's wrong?" he inquired urgently. She handed the newspaper without a comment and he let out an oath as he read the headline.

" **Mysterious Pandemic** **Causes Comas Throughout Fuyuki** "

" _Fucking Caster!_ " roared Harry as he grabbed the nearest object—an empty glass—and hurled it against the wall where it shattered, "Does the secrecy of magecraft have _any_ meaning these days? The Association is going to be up the ass of every magus in Japan if word of this leaks. What in the search for Akasha is that cretin thinking?"

He was drawn out of his rage when he felt a cool hand rest itself on his arm, and he took a deep breathe to calm himself down. Grasping the hand, he laid a gentle kiss on it and glanced up at Sakura, "Thanks, I needed that."

"What do you think it is?" she asked, smiling back before glancing down to read the full article as Harry delved into it himself.

Harry scowled, "It could be any number of things, but my bet is that Caster and whoever its Master is have tapped into the ley lines beneath Fuyuki, and are using them to drain the local populace for prana. Short of setting up a bounded field the size of Fuyuki, it's the only way I see even a Servant putting this many people in comas within such a short time."

"Well," Sakura hummed, "correct me if I'm wrong, but that does mean there's an upside, doesn't it?"

"No, you're right. At the very least we've narrowed its base down to one of a few locations. I could count the places in Fuyuki where a Servant could tap into ley lines on one hand, with fingers to spare."

"Keep thinking on it, I'm sure you'll think of something. You always do," Sakura encouraged as she stood to fetch a broom for the broken glass.

" _Indeed,_ " thought Harry as he sipped the tea Sakura had brought in earlier, " _I do always have my field agent to run down leads._ "

* * *

At the same time, across the city, an immortal woman glared down at several groveling thralls. Rita Rozay-en had always held nothing but contempt for ghouls, but even she could not deny their use at times when it came to menial labor. Apostlehood had its ups and downs.

"Do you have all the pieces?" she demanded, sneering at the worms as they deposited a burlap sack at her feet and immediately retreated.

Rita's eyes slid over to her Servant standing silently in the corner, "Well, what are you waiting for? Check it!"

"Yes Master," murmured Caster as she immediately stepped forward and opened the sack. Her skin crawled at the _oily_ feeling that suddenly permeated the air. With trepidation, she slowly reached in and her fingers brushed against. She recoiled as what felt like tar rapidly enveloped her hand, but before she could react, the telltale feeling of a command seal activating overcame her resistance.

Caster screamed and desperately tried to summon her Rule Breaker, but in response her Master clamped down on the prana flow and cut her off. With the slow and steady inevitability of the tide, the black oil flowed out of the bag inch by inch until it cut off Caster's last, desperate gasp. She collapsed on the hard ground of the temple.

"That was... underwhelming," complained Rita as she gave her collapsed Servant's side a little kick. When there was no reaction from either the cursed oil or the unconscious witch, she sighed and motioned for the ghouls to pick her up.

"Put her in the circle and inform me the moment she awakes."

Her thralls nodded furiously before snatching up Caster and scurrying off deeper into the temple. Rita moved over to the now cleansed fragments of the Holy Grail that she'd had recovered from the remnants of the old Fuyuki and lifted them with a smile on her face.

At least her hypothesis had been correct. She had the capability to put the broken pieces of the Grail together, but she couldn't do so while it was cursed with Angra Mainyu—thus she had prepared an alternate... container for the curse.

After it was restored and she had access to both a fully manifested Grail and her Servant empowered with a slumbering god of evil, nothing would stop her.

* * *

Night fell on the first official day of the Fifth Holy Grail War, which meant that it was finally time for the Masters and Servants to come out and play. The first and perhaps most orthodox magus in the city was already making her move.

Rin Tohsaka, Second Owner of Fuyuki, stood atop a skyscraper downtown next to her Servant. Even her reinforced vision failed to make anything out between the dark and the distance. Archer, however, had no such limitations as he scanned the city from his perch. He had spent most of the morning cleaning up his Master's living room, repairing the hole in her roof, and listening to his Master rant about how Caster's idiocy had made the news.

So now they were doing simultaneous surveillance on a few of the possible locations that Rin theorized the ley lines could be tapped into from. Of course, Archer already knew that Caster would have set herself up at the Ryuudo Temple, but Rin didn't need to know that.

After about an hour of faux-observation, Archer got bored and decided to accelerate the timetable.

"Based on what I can pick up of the local ley lines, the drained prana seems to be flowing towards that temple on the other end of town," he declared, indicating towards Caster's headquarters.

Rin, who had nearly dozed off, immediately snapped up looking relieved and flustered.

"O-Of course. Precisely where I predicted," she said hurriedly, "What are we waiting around for?"

Archer smiled was concealed by the moonless night, but he stood, dusted himself off, and knelt before Rin.

"I simply await your orders, Master."

* * *

The typically occupied streets of Fuyuki were desolate as Rin and Archer slowly advanced on the stairs leading to Ryuudo Temple. With Archer being a ranged fighter, he accomplished this by grabbing Rin and flinging himself between tall building so that he never lost his vantage point.

Unfortunately, the time finally came when the town reached its more traditional district, and buildings above two stories became nonexistent. Thus, rather than continue by rooftop and make themselves obvious, the duo opted to continue their investigation on foot.

It was right as they were within spitting distance of the stairs that they paused at the sound of a boisterous voice.

"I swear Saber! This is where all that drained prana is flowing towards, really! Why would I lie?"

A placid tone said something in reply, but neither could make it out.

"Sightseeing? Honestly, sometimes I feel like you have no faith in me." The pout was almost audible in her words.

Rin and Archer exchanged glances, and took up positions in perfect sync. Rin leapt back into the shade of the trees by the road, drew up her sleeve, and activated her crest. Archer ducked into a nearby alley and drew a pair of black and white swords.

The moment Rin's crest powered up the sound of the approaching footsteps came to a simultaneous stop.

"Someone's channeling prana," muttered the boisterous voice, effectively invisible in the fog.

A second feminine voice answered in a dead, inflectionless monotone, "I feel it as well. Do you wish me to engage?"

Rin let out a silent curse—she'd been to hasty getting ready for a possible fight and had been detected.

"No," ordered the first, "It's not in Caster's nature to venture out of its territory, which means that this is another Master, and thus a possible ally."

There was an uncomfortable silence as Rin shivered in the cold fog and contemplated the other Master's words before she was jumped at an unexpected shout. "Hello?" cried the first voice once again, "I see no reason we can't be reasonable about this! You're obviously here to keep Caster from blowing this whole war as well, so why don't we work together?"

Once more the silence and cold reigned as Rin mentally weighed her options. She didn't like her odds if she chose to engage. If the voice's earlier words were anything to go by, she'd be up against a Saber, the most powerful Servant, and her own Servant's element of surprise had already been lost.

On the other hand, the almost childish Master speaking had an air of... sincerity about her voice. Rin got the impression that the offer was genuine if nothing else, and she hadn't come to risk her Servant in a clash with a Saber so soon in the war.

Her decision made, she made a show of good faith by stepping out of the trees and into the dim glow of the streetlamps. "Agreed," she called out to the mist, "Your turn."

The dense fog wavered for a moment before it parted to reveal a startlingly young girl dressed in a warm European-style coat, flanked by a taller blonde woman in black armor with a scowl etched across her face.

"See," the girl chuckled at her Servant, "there's still honor among magi."

Saber's scowl deepened, if that was even possible, "That would imply there ever was, which I find a fallacy."

"Semantics," the young girl waved off before abandoning the protection of her Servant to step towards Rin with a broad grin. Once she was a respectful distance away, she paused and delivered an elaborate curtsy.

"Illyasviel Emiya, wonderful to meet you," she introduced herself cheerfully before pausing with a frown, "Or I suppose it should technically be 'Emiya Illyasviel' with the Japanese naming conventions. Regardless, it's a pleasure."

Rin froze at the name, before snapping back into focus and reciprocating the curtsy, "Tohsaka Rin, Second Owner of Fuyuki and Tohasaka Representative. The pleasure is all mine."

Illya's delicate eyebrows rose, "Second Owner? That _would_ explain why you're dealing with a violation of the secrecy of magecraft personally. That's commendable."

"You were offering an alliance?" Rin confirmed, hoping that her nervousness didn't leak into the 'Perfect Student' mask she was currently fronting for all it was worth.

"Of course," chirped Illya happily, "Since we're both—"

Her sentence remained unfinished as the fog seemed to suddenly thicken and an unholy howl of rage resounded from nearby.

* * *

Some day, Shinji swore, some day there would be a reckoning. He didn't know when or how, but one day he swore that he'd put a fucking end to his 'little brother'.

But for the moment, he was stuck wandering around the city, freezing his ass off and looking for God-knows-what, accompanied by a 'roided out giant that made a point of reminding him just how much it wanted him dead every couple of seconds.

He still had no fucking clue why he'd even been coerced into this. Harry hadn't even given him instruction beyond 'Follow Berserker. He'll handle the rest.'

What the fuck was he supposed to do with that?

So here he was nearing that one ancient-ass temple on the edge of town while trying desperately not to think about exactly how much the being he was following wanted to rip him apart into gory pieces. This was rather hard given how Berserker exploited their link to send him the occasional image of himself doing just that in _vivid_ detail.

He shivered. Leave it to fucking Harry to bring the most psychotic bastard to ever walk the earth back to life.

Immediately, he winced and rubbed his forehead. Apparently that thought had been strong enough to flicker over the mental link thingy, and Berserker had responded with what felt like the psychic equivalent of a roundhouse kick.

If he didn't know that doing so would finally give the giant a full excuse to reduce him to paste, he'd have already burned that fucking book.

At this point, he was still thinking that it might be worth it.

Another mental kick. Another wince. Another utterly unique fantasy of himself being used as a stress ball.

He sighed, picking up his pace a bit to keep up with the invisible giant. He was ninety percent certain that it was deliberately taking long strides just to fuck with him. For an insane beast, it sure had a fucking sadistic streak.

Suddenly, it froze mid-step and sniffed the air like a dog. With no further ceremony, it fully materialized in all its pants-wetting glory, drew a giant sword out of goddamn nowhere, and leapt into the air like a fucking _rocket._

"Shit. Shit. _Shit!_." Shinji muttered as he took off in the direction it had jumped towards.

* * *

At the sound of the roar, both Servants instantly went on the defensive. In the Grail War, there was only one thing that could make _that_ sound. And it was not something any Servant wanted to be in a straight fight with.

A strange whistling filled the air, and Archer instinctively dove to tackle Rin out of the way—just in time too, as where she had once been standing a mad titan descended.

With a thunderous crash it impacted, followed several seconds later by a sonic boom that shattered every streetlight in sight. Rin's breath hitched in her throat as she gazed up at it from where Archer had tackled her.

It was... It was...

She couldn't find terms to describe it. Archer was a grizzled and snarky veteran of many conflicts, approaching the Grail War with an almost weary resignation. Saber had the air of a black knight, bereft of a code, a master, and a cause.

This... _thing_ though...

Grotesque, was the first term she felt was apt. It was at least two meters of inhumanly taut muscles, with bony protrusions extruding from his elbows. Its skin was an unnatural ebony that when combined with its fiery red eyes gave it the visage of a creature from Hell.

All Servants had a permeable aura around them—after all, they were the greatest champions humanity had ever produced—but this Servant's aura buffeted against her in physical waves of raw, mindless power—given purpose by naught but its rage and Master's direction. Looking at it, every survival instinct in Rin's body screamed to abandon all hope and flee. What stood before her was not a foe to be fought, but a force of nature to be _survived_.

The beast snapped its head upwards and let loose another roar that nearly deafened Rin. Her bones vibrated uncomfortably and the very ground shook with its intensity as the Servant wordlessly announced its decision to slaughter them all.

Saber was the first to react, drawing a black claymore with the grace of a battle-hardened warrior. Berserker—for what else could it be—took this as the provocation it was waiting for as it charged to meet her.

The impact when her sword met the giant's sent a shockwave through the air, cracking the pavement and knocking several trees over.

Rin reinforced her vision, but even that could not keep up with the flurry of blows that the Servant's exchanged. Still, even to the untrained eye it was clear that Berserker was winning. The colossus' mindless strength and ferocity filled in the gaps left by his lack of skill, and it was all Saber could do to avoid being overwhelmed—let alone strike back.

Her main problem was thanks to the beast's strength, even the blows she parried or evaded carried risk as the speed of the crude sword turned the air around it into a brutal cutting instrument.

Right as she decided to take a few hits so that she could effectively withdraw, secure Illya, and get to safety, she received aid in the form of an arrow that _radiated_ prana shooting towards the giant.

It's reflexes, if not its mind, saved it as it jerked to the side just in time to have the arrow whip harmlessly past it.

Saber took the opportunity for what it was, leaping backwards and snatching Illya into her grasp. Berserker whirled around to find its new target, focusing its eyes on Archer, who was holding Rin.

"Split up!" he called, "He can only chase one of us!"

With no hesitance, Saber leapt into the air as fast as her enhanced agility would permit, paying no heed to the squawking of her frightened charge. Slowly, the thick aura of madness lessened, and after roughly fifteen minutes she landed them on the balcony of their hotel suite.

From the vantage point, she could just barely make out the red coat of Archer moving in the opposite direction. Oddly, the mad titan didn't seem to be pursuing him either.

Perhaps with no targets in sight, its Master had recalled it.

In the safety of their temporary base of operations, Illya finally relaxed and almost immediately passed out on her bed, fully clothed. Saber sighed and moved out to the balcony.

Today had not been a good day.

* * *

 _Finally._

 _A heretic._

 _One she could kill._

 _Assassin was just barely fighting the urge to abandon her training and kill her target right now. He was so open. So tempting._

 _But she knew that there was a difference between appearing open and actually being so. Thus, she resolved to follow him back to his base of operation and dispatch him when he was vulnerable. It was just a matter of waiting for the rat to scurry back to its nest._

 _He was already making excellent pace. Obviously, an encounter with her brilliantly mad counterpart did wonders when it came to generating a sense of necessary expediency. Had it not been for the burden he carried, she could've had him already._

 _She resolved not to dispose of the burden as well, delightful as it would be. Her Master should have no qualms about her killing a dangerous foe, but it seemed that he knew most of the mortal ones._

 _She'd have to be cautious when it came to slaying them._

 _Otherwise, she might displease her Master._

 _Might fail him._

 _Might make him reject her._

 _She would never let that happen._

 _He would love her._

* * *

Rin had never touched alcohol in her life outside of that used in alchemy, but for the first time she was seriously considering it.

Just the memories of that nightmare made flesh made her want to drown them out. She shivered once again, despite the warm blankets Archer had wrapped her in after they got back. That _thing_ had been _wrong._

She shuddered to think the mindset of the Master that could summon such a monster into the war—that could make such a being manifest.

It seemed that dealing with Caster and its Master was a task she would have to delegate for another day.

At the moment, she wanted a hot bath and about ten hours of sleep.

"Archer," she called, waiting for him to open the door before continuing, "Draw a bath for me."

Her Servant's lips quirked oddly, before he nodded and closed the door once again. Once he was gone, Rin decided that perhaps extenuating circumstances gave one an excuse to make otherwise irresponsible decisions.

At least, that was the excuse she gave herself as she padded across the room and opened the whiskey cabinet her father had kept in the bedroom. A vast array stood before her, and lacking a better idea she just picked the bottle that was emptiest and a small glass.

Despite the horrid taste, one drink turned into two, and two into four, and eventually the memories of the murderous Servant began to slowly fade.

The next thing Rin discovered was that she was what others called 'a bad drunk'. By the time she finished off the first bottle and started on a second, she started feeling rather... woozy. And sleepy.

Without conscious transition between states, Rin found herself going from upright to face down in the room's plush carpet. She tried in vain to push herself back up, but her arms, it seemed, had made the decision for her that it was time for sleep.

Rin gratefully complied.

* * *

The chiming of the clock banging out noon might as well have been an air raid for its effect on Rin's head. She seemed to crave everything from fried food to juice, and at the same time she felt sickened at the thought of consuming anything.

Wait... noon?

She snapped up immediately, and also immediately regretted it. Her head pounded like someone was going at it with an engraving hammer.

No, she couldn't let herself get distracted. It was Monday, which meant school. She had perfect attendance all year, but it seemed that it would be broken today. Rolling over, she started rubbing her temples in a vain effort to dispel her headache. This was all her fault.

Actually, no it wasn't. It was Archer's fault. He should have woken her.

When she got her hands on that workshy familiar, she decided, there would be _consequences_ for letting her reputation as a 'school idol' be tarnished. Speaking of which, where was he? He was supposed to have drawn her a bath the previous night if her admittedly foggy memory recalled.

Groggily, she finally managed to get to her feet, ignoring the embarrassing puddle of drool staining the carpet in favor of the empty bottle beside her.

She felt disgusted in herself for indulging a weakness like that. She vowed to never do so again.

Not in the mood to change clothes, she hobbled out of her bedroom and started searching for her wayward Servant. As she was padding barefoot down the corridor, it was rather obvious to her when the carpet she was treading on turned wet and frigid.

Jumping back in shock, Rin took a moment to look down and saw that this entire section of hallway was flooded with water leaking out from the nearby bathroom.

She let out several choice, and very unladylike words regarding her Servant's forgetfulness as she flung open the door to shut off the obviously forgotten tap and instead let loose an involuntary scream of fright.

Archer lay facedown in the bathtub, his throat slit cleanly open from ear to ear.

The word, "Heretic" was written on the wall in his blood.


	4. Chapter 4: An Offer You Can't Refuse

**Welcome back readers! Neolyph returns from a tumor extraction with (finally) a chapter of A Broken Wizard and a Broken Magus! Sorry for the wait on this one guys. Long story, but shit got in the way. Had some serious struggle with writing a few sections of this one due to my lack of experience with how I wanted to write the characters. I was trying to find a consistent voice for them, and I can only hope that I pulled it off.**

 ** _ANNOUNCEMENT_** _ **!**_

 **There is a poll up on my profile. The original pairing for this story is Harry, Sakura, Rin, Saber Alter, Assassin. As I was writing this chapter, I thought of a brilliant way to write Rider into both the story and harem. The question on the poll is whether I should keep the harem smaller and more focused or try my luck and slip Rider in to the group and harem dynamic?**

 _ **ANNOUNCEMENT!**_

 **For one common question on last chapter: I'm going to answer it right here so that I don't have to reply to like 15 reviews. A lot of people pointed out that a Servant's body would dematerialize after their death. If you want the real answer as to why that didn't happen, it's been a while since I've watched FSN and I forgot. If you want an in-story one, because the Grail has yet to materialize and so Archer's soul had nowhere to flow towards. Thus, his body stayed manifested. Archer died _unprecedentedly_ early in the war, so there was no system in place yet to take his soul early. No Servants will dissolve until Rider is summoned.**

 **Now for a few reviews!**

 **Yoyu Ichigami: Yeah, blame it on the fact that I was never bigger on Archer in canon. I mean we was cool and all, but I never went Gar. As you'll see in this chapter though, it does shake up the war.**

 **Noctis Lucius Caelum: There are most certainly enemies that I have in mind fitting for someone like Harry. He'll definitely be powerful, but I'm going to be writing Potterverse as made by George R.R. Martin. Let's just say the Death Eaters and Snakeface himself are going to be taking the kid gloves off a _lot_ earlier.**

 **AraelStannis: Yeah, as you'll see in this chapter, Sakura is _definitely_ not buddy-buddy with Rin. Berserker is an entirely blunt instrument, which means that Harry is limited to essentially sending him out to run wild, but with a chaperone. This obviously makes him a lot of enemies. Just wait, Rita's about to lay some serious hurt on everyone else _without_ her Servant. Meanwhile, Assassin is just ninjaing her way around and trying to figure out some way to suitably impress Harry.**

 **: Illya is both different and similar. Her personality is still very much intact, I think. She's still an adorable homicidal psychopath, but filtered through the knowledge of her father's love and ideals.**

 **FuZzvKiNgZz: Yeah, that's kind of how I rationalized it. Most of Archer's wars have been pretty similar. Between reminiscing with Rin and getting jumped by a familiar spirit, Archer was pretty confidant that this world was at least mostly in line with the ones he knew. He wasn't expecting a Servant like Assassin to be operating so early in the war.**

 **Generatedname: Assassin may be the weakest Servant yes, but you fail take into account that she is also admittedly straight-up hax. Still, Archer wasn't really in a position to put up much of a fight from a surprise ambush in a safehouse. I spent a fair amount of time trying to get Kirei's voice, so I'm glad it's appreciated. Shirou is nonexistent in this particular story. The entity known as Shirou Emiya was simply not born. That's why Kiritsugu left the fire empty-handed.**

 **Akuma-Heika: Rita Rozay-en isn't one of the more popular Dead Apostles. All it says on the wiki is that she's something of a traditionalist stuck-up European aristocrat. I write her like if Dracula and Elizabeth Bathory had an unholy lovechild.**

 **Mangahero18: No! No noble death for Archer! He gets to die like a 'lil bitch for bringing the word 'gar' into internet-speak. As for age, Harry is four years older than Potter canon, but since time dilates differently between universes it won't be that year when he gets back. In Nasuverse, he was there for an additional twelve years, so he is currently nineteen, since it's past his birthday. Sakura is eighteen.**

 **Bob of the A: I'm not turning Harry into a cackling Voldemort-ripoff, no. Harry's most certainly not going to be a good guy, but he also won't be torturing infants for giggles. He uses Shinji as a chewtoy, but Shinji did some pretty heinous shit both in canon and this universe. Everything Harry does will have a very deliberate and intentional purpose behind it.**

 **JDS62: Harry most definitely felt the drain, but it came so quickly on the heels of Berserker's outing that Harry couldn't tell the difference.**

 **aliestrikehero: Illya is not harem, and she has Avalon. It didn't circumvent the age issue, but it kept them from shortening her life.**

 **Finally An Available Username: Well, in their defense Fate-Stay Night _does_ have a very structured, linear plot. Changing almost any part of it requires a massive rewriting of most plot elements just to keep it coherent. That's part of what took this chapter so long. Still, I'm glad that you're enjoying it so far and hope that you enjoy the rest of the war. It's most certainly changed.**

Chapter 4: An Offer You Can't Refuse

Rin was not hyperventilating.

Rin Tohsaka, heir to the esteemed Tohsaka family, was _not_ hyperventilating.

Suddenly, she felt very small and far away. It was as if she were looking into the world not from her eyes, but from the back of her skull. Her vision narrowed into a tunnel and her breathe started coming in short, frantic gasps.

On pure reflex, she darted backwards, only to find that the wet bathroom floor did not offer nearly the same purchase as the carpet had. Her foot came out from under her and she instinctively flailed about, fingers groping desperately for some purchase, only to find none.

Her head collided hard with the door-jamb; temporarily filling her vision with white .

Clutching her injury, she made the mistake of rolling onto her side, immersing half her face in the deep puddle of water that was the bathroom floor.

Water, filled with her Servant's blood.

She instantly shrieked and tried to escape like a cornered animal, but between her disorientation and the slippery floor, she only succeeded in splashing around vainly. No matter how she thrashed about, she was still immersed in the viscous water. The red lifeblood spread throughout it clung to her skin. Water filled her lungs several times, only to be promptly expelled by her rapid breathes.

On a deep, subconscious level, she recognized that she was having a panic attack, however none of that registered in favor of her conscious levels screaming for her to do whatever it took to get out of the water.

Finally, after several seconds that stretched on like an eternity, one her flailing arms latched onto the porcelain sink.

Using the bathroom fixture like an anchor, both emotionally and physically, she hauled herself into a sitting position.

In and out. In and out. In and out. That was how you were supposed to deal with a panic attack. In and out breathed Rin. In and out. In and out. Following several more repetitions of this procedure, Rin finally managed to pull herself into a loose semblance of control.

Much more carefully, she extricated herself from the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind her, sagging against it with closed eyes.

In and out. In and out. In and ou—

Archer's pale face and open throat flashed before her vision.

As if the floodgates had been opened, a million thoughts rushed through her consciousness. Predominant among them was the revelation of just how _bad_ a situation this was. This was _fatally_ bad. Having her Servant, a Knight Class to boot, killed _in her home,_ before the Grail War had even properly started...

There wasn't even _precedent_ for just how bad this was.

She was dead. The fact hit her like a freight train and she wanted to deny it, but the cold logic of it prevented her. She was absolutely, completely dead and there was nothing she could do about it.

If she stayed in her home, either the Assassin who had obviously dispatched her Servant would return, or a competitor with a grudge against the Tohsakas would take her out. Even if she abandoned her pride and fled to the refuge of the Church and the Fake Priest, she wasn't entirely sure he wouldn't just toss her out for a laugh.

He may have raised her after the death of her father in the Fourth War, but Kirei just wasn't normal. Even at a young age she could see that whatever he was, it was far from human. The only ones he seemed to have anything _resembling_ normal relationships with were...

Harry and Sakura.

The rapport she had with them was a difficult one to classify. Any association with her sister only brought pain from the lingering suspicion that her adoptive grandfather had not been _gentle_ in teaching her the family magics. Like with Harry, if you knew what you were looking for, it was relatively simple to note the otherwise barely discernible _offness_ with which they conducted themselves—as if they were viewing the world through tinted visors.

Or from behind masks...

Still, they were at the very least ambivalent whenever circumstances forced them together, such as school projects. Before she realized that he'd been adopted into the Matous, she was a tad ashamed to admit that she'd even harbored a mild crush on Harry.

The point was, she trusted them leagues further than she trusted the likes of the Fake Priest. And from behind the Matou bounded fields and whatever Servant they'd managed to summon, she would hopefully be safe.

It was a long shot, to be sure, but it was her only option.

* * *

 _Gritting his teeth, Harry snapped up in pain. Instantly, he knew something had gone wrong with Shinji and Berserker's_ _reconnaissance expedition. His Servant's bloodlust thrummed through his head, roaring a desire to kill to the very depths of his consciousness._

 _The pain was the largest indicator, however. Berserker was infamous as the Servant that put the greatest strain on their Master, and his was a **titan** even among his class. When materialized, every movement the Servant made Harry's body sing in agony as it strained his recovering circuits._

 _Yet Harry didn't give in, no matter the suffering his guardian brought. The Pain was simple, he was used to The Pain. The Pain had made him strong; able to protect that which he loved._

 _He wouldn't let it conquer him. Instead, he let his eyes close and let The Calm numb The Pain._

 _Sakura's sleeping form shifted next to him, unhappy at losing his warmth next to it. He ran a calming hand along the curvature of her body, using the action to ease the burning of his circuits._

 _She smiled unconsciously, and let loose a mewling purr like a soothed kitten._

 _The more he thought of her, the less anything else seemed to matter._

 _He had no memory of anything before his presumable kidnapping by Zouken, so for all intents and purposes, he had been born in that pit with Sakura. His first memory was of opening his eyes as worms tunneled into his body only to gaze upon a beautiful girl about his age looking at him with a tortured expression._

 _Without thought, he'd decided that she shouldn't look like that._

 _Another agonizing thrum from his overworked circuits forced him to slide out of the bed away from Sakura, who once again rolled about discontentedly. It was regrettably necessary, however, as Harry could see the skin around his circuits nearly sizzle at the heat being generated by his circuits. The Pain was starting to overcome The Calm._

 _Frantically, he snatched his cane from his bedside and hobbled for the attached bathroom. His nerves felt like they were on fire, and for all he knew, they were._

 _With a trembling hand he worked the door open and forced the aged taps of the bathtub open until blessedly cool water soon flowed from them. Without another thought he stripped his boxers and plunged into the water, letting it help compensate for the massive drain being put on him._

 _The water immediately steamed and hissed in protest at the abuse it was undergoing, but it served its purpose and brought sweet relief to Harry's circuits—which had previously nearly been on the cusp of permanent damage._

 _Still in intense pain, but lessened enough that he could focus a bit, he closed his eyes and focused on overlaying his vision with that of Berserker._

 _Useless._

 _He could certainly feel what Berserker was feeling over their link, but it was all filtered through the giant's bloodlust and deadened sense of pain. Even the bits that he could see through his Servant's eyes were fragmented, erratic, and overwhelmed by a red haze. All he could make out were a street and a few hazy outlines._

 _Useless, but entirely expected._

 _Of course, this was precisely what he'd 'employed' his dear brother Shinji for. His Servant was unable to provide after-action resorts and regular familiars would be disabled by the ambient prana that inevitably coursed through any area hosting a battle between Heroic Spirits._

 _Finally, after roughly three minutes of suffering, he felt Berserker return to the immaterial._

 _With an enormous sigh of relief, he went slack in the tepid water, letting it cover all but his nose._

 _As his circuits rapidly cooled off, he could feel the damage done almost instantly. The skin around his circuits was cracked and blistering already, pulsating its own heat. His circuits themselves were mercifully still intact, but it was obvious that the last day and a half's recovery had been wasted._

 _The crest worms were fortunately still dormant, if a bit miffed at the heat. Despite The Pain, he had refrained from activating them as circuits—suffering and burns he could have Sakura treat, but the worms inside him, resting against his vital organs and nervous system, could do some damage he wouldn't walk away from if he strained them on top of the earlier summoning._

 _He was really starting to hate this war._

 _His position was entirely untenable. Sure, he had the strongest Servant, but just three minutes of using it on his injured circuits had sent him back into relapse. He wasn't even able to fall back on the prana he'd been storing all those years in his gems and the worms, as they had **all** been drained just summoning the damned thing._

 _Sakura had been helping by transferring her od to him several times a day, which helped take some pressure off, but even she couldn't produce enough to keep the giant from draining him dry every time he manifested._

 _Unless he could find a new source of prana, a few of which he was considering, he would lose this war before it even started._

 _Through a deliberate effort, he slowed his heightened breathing and let The Calm overtake him once more. Soon, his heart rate was settled again._

 _What didn't help matters at all was that Zouken had been suspiciously absent ever since the summoning. His best guess was that he figured he had sufficient over Harry to ensure that he would win the Grail, and thus was secreting himself away to avoid a double cross._

 _Clever, but still playing into Harry's hands. By making his distrust clear, it left Harry free to operate as he saw fit unless Zouken felt like appearing personally and exposing himself to a potential betrayal simply to deliver a chastisement._

 _A fortunate mistake on Zouken's raising of Harry was that he'd had well over a decade to learn what made the old man tick._

 _At first glance, it was easy to dismiss Zouken as a sadistic parasite, concerned only with furthering his life, inflicting pain, and expanding the Matou thaumaturgy._

 _This was not entirely true._

 _Cruel and twisted as the man was, there was indeed a method to his madness. It had taken years upon years to piece it together enough to understand, but Harry did. What the ancient man wanted above else was neither money, power, nor even eternal life—at least, not in the traditional sense._

 _What he wanted was a legacy._

 _As possible as it was for Zouken to use the Holy Grail's wish for immortality, he wouldn't. What he had stumbled across was the irrevocable fact that despite him prolonging his body through foul magecraft, there was nothing to do about the inevitable decay of the mind. Immortality only appealed to the young._

 _Instead, his aims were twofold. First, he wanted to ensure that his own line finally won the war he'd helped found all those years ago. Second, he wanted his line to continue and prosper after his death._

 _To this end, he'd taken in two new bloodlines, male and female, to ensure that the stagnating Matou blood did not taint future generations carrying the name and then he used the means at his disposal to make them strong, devoted to one another, and dedicated to the cause of winning the war._

 _In Zouken's eyes, the loss of control over a leg or an eye was worth the subsequent boost in magical power that the additional circuits provided._

 _Of course, he disguised all of this behind a veneer of sadistic glee, yet that was also a part of his plans. Zouken would view any death but that at the hands of his own machinations as unsatisfactory._

 _He likely did not intend to live to see the end of the next month. It was only to ensure that Harry followed through with his end of the bargain that he kept himself out of reach and in control of the crest worms._

 _This state of affairs was tolerable in Harry's eyes. So long as he kept his word and won the war, he was confident that he and Sakura would finally be able to slip Zouken's leash and avenge themselves upon him. Hell, the man might even just let them._

 _Until then, however, he had to play along. And on the off-chance he'd miscalculated, he had several contingencies in mind._

* * *

Something purple tickled Harry's nose several hours later. Groggily, he forced his eyes open and was immediately disappointed in himself as he realized that he'd accidentally fallen asleep in the bath.

"You fell asleep," stated Sakura gently as she attempted to rouse him.

Harry looked up at her, dressed in a fleece nightgown that hinted tantalizingly at the curves hidden underneath, and looked back down at himself before making movements to rise. The moment he did so two soft hands helped compensate for his inoperate leg.

"Entirely unintentionally love, I assure you," he muttered sleepily. Still, he complied with her tender assistance and let her dry him off before leading him back to the shared bed.

Once lying down, Sakura had him flip over onto his stomach as she charged up her own circuits. A magical circle carefully formed in the air, hovering and rotating clockwise over Harry's prone form. Her eyes closed as she assimilated the information being processed by the circle and frowned. "I take it Berserker had an encounter last night? Your circuits are damaged again."

At Harry's pained nod, she tutted and closed her eyes once again as a second circle materialized over the first and rotated counterclockwise. Slowly, relief trickled through Harry's body as she mended the burns his inflamed circuits had inflicted and healed the agitated tissue around them.

"I don't have a lot," she admitted, blushing, "especially after healing that damage, but I'll give you what I can."

Her hands fumbled with her nightgown until Harry rolled over to assist her with it.

With her innate care and sensitivity, she started slow and gentle so as not to aggravate his injuries—but eventually that gave way to more energetic techniques as the pleasure started to outweigh the pain.

Harry was too exhausted to put more effort in than that necessary to complete the ritual, so he let her take the lead. The climax came relatively soon, coinciding with Sakura's release of prana into his system.

But it wasn't enough. Under normal circumstances Sakura could almost match Harry's reserves, but with both of them working desperately to support the pranic equivalent of a jet engine, she was barely able to manage enough to take him out of a danger zone. The second he tried to enact even basic Thaumaturgy, it would disappear. He would need to find another source of prana urgently.

"Thanks dear, I really needed that," he said sincerely as she slumped against him in exhaustion and he reflexively enveloped her in his arms.

"Anything for you, my love. You know that," she mumbled into his shoulder.

He wished he could just lie there for eternity, but duty called. For a moment, he considered taking her with him, but discarded that thought immediately. What he was about to do would likely not be pleasant.

"I'm going to check in with Shinji, love. Just stay here and rest," he murmured into her ear. She protested weakly that she was fine, but he pressed his hand against her shoulder and gave a look that conveyed that this was one of those times where he would not accept argument. Immediately, she nodded her head meekly and complied.

He laid a gentle kiss on her forehead, "I'll be back later. Call me if you need anything."

* * *

Honestly, Shinji should have known it was coming. He should have expected it the second he got home. He should have expected it before that, when he was wandering around Fuyuki in search of the bloodthirsty god of death that his "brother" had somehow managed to bring into this world.

Still, the fact remains that he was unprepared when said "brother" paid him a visit.

"Shinji," stated a clear voice from the doorway. He whirled around to see Harry standing in the doorway with an unreadable expression. His chair spun around instantly and his eyes flicked about for a second in search of his brother's pet monster, but it must be invisible right now. Even when it was with him on his patrol, he could only tell where it was when it wanted him to.

"Harry," he started pleasantly, but then stopped. There was none of the false cheer on Harry's face this time. Instead, his adopted brother was all business.

"What happened last night?"

Instantly, Shinji knew he was fucked. "Last night? Err... what about it?"

Harry's eyes narrowed, "Who did Berserker get into a fight with?"

The moment's hesitation told Harry all he needed to know.

"You lost him, didn't you?"

"It wasn't-" was all Shinji could protest before being cut off by a hand around his throat. Caught off guard, he was easily pinned to his desk by his quasi-brother's vise-like grip. Panic set in as oxygen started getting cut off from reaching his brain and he clawed feebly at the hand.

His gaze drifted up to meet Harry's, and he knew that there was a fair chance that he would die here. There was something... _monstrous_ in Harry's gaze.

"I gave you a very simple task," his current abuser stressed, "All you had to do was do a bit of patrol and follow Berserker if he got into a fight so that you could report on it. Now I find out that you've failed even in that? What am I to do with you Shinji?"

Shinji's vision was starting to go black, but he still opened his mouth to speak in his defense. Instead, the hand tightened and he was silenced with a strained gasp.

"Oh, my apologies if I gave the impression that I was asking for input. I've already decided what to do with you. Between your recent failures and your past _indiscretions_ , I'm afraid there's only one real use you have left for me."

Much to Shinji's horror, he didn't miss the meaningful way Harry's gaze flickered in the direction of the stairs leading to the basement.

The last thing he observed before losing consciousness was the way his brother's body suddenly stiffened, as if sensing something only detectable to him. The grip around his throat slackened but it was too late. Blackness overtook him just in time for him to miss the next word coming from Harry's mouth.

"Rin."

* * *

It was to Harry's great surprise that he felt the bounded fields surrounding the Matou Estate detect an approaching non-hostile magus. Despite the intent-based protections, he was still wary of his visitor. For a magus to trespass on the property of a fellow practitioner during the Grail War was the height of folly unless you were expected.

The problem with that, of course, was that there was only two other resident magi in Fuyuki, and Kirei was keyed into the bounded fields.

He knew his prana reserves were very limited but he needed to know who was entering his territory. Still keeping Shinji pinned, his eyes unfocused as he took on the senses of one of the familiars he kept as security for the manor.

In the small kennel constructed towards the rear of the estate, a large black Doberman that Sakura had affectionately dubbed "Brutus" lifted its head. At its Master's mental command, it trotted stealthily on padded feet into the treeline lining the perimeter of the grounds.

Through its keen eyes, Harry perceived Rin Tohsaka, much to his bafflement, nervously approaching the front door of the manor. She was most certainly a Master in this war, one of the original three, yet the fields failed to detect a Servant. He quelled his familiar's natural instincts to charge and savage the intruder before ordering it back to the kennel; its presence was no longer needed.

"Rin," he muttered to himself as his senses returned to his own.

Looking down, he noted that his hand was still closed around the now unconscious Shinji's throat. With a sigh, he released his grip and let his nominal brother slump to the floor. He could be dealt with later. That fact this his betrothed's sister and likely an enemy Master was currently paying a visit could not.

He shrugged his coat on and made his way to the front door. Just for security, he ensured that the astralized Berserker was following in his wake. Manifesting him would probably do irreparable damage to his circuits, but that was still a superior alternative to being jumped by an enemy Servant.

Right as he approached the door, he could see the shadowed silhouette through the warped glass compose herself before reaching up and giving the knocker two raps. Of course, by this point he already had his hand on the door handle and was opening it, resulting in a startled Rin jumping back on instinct.

"Uhh, hey Harry..." she squeaked, looking flustered. Raising an eyebrow, he looked her up and down. Her typically immaculate clothes were wrinkled and creased, as if she had slept in them; they were damp as well, and she was visibly shivering in the cold air.

He was also fairly certain that he smelled brandy on her breath.

She opened her mouth to speak, but he took one more look at her shivering and cut her off by raising his hand.

"Would you like to come inside?"

* * *

Seated in front the fire set in the normally disused hearth located in the sitting room, Harry sipped his tea and stared down the uncomfortable-looking Rin Tohsaka, waiting for her to make the first move.

"My Servant is dead," she muttered suddenly.

Harry's hand briefly tightened on the handle of his teacup before he checked his composure. It would certainly explain why she wasn't having her own Servant stand as security for this meeting. Also, since the wards hadn't detected a heroic spirit, it lent veracity to that claim; unless of course she was the Master of Assassin, which he personally found unlikely.

He'd known Rin for a number of years through Kirei, and had tried to maintain at least a cordial relationship for the sake of her sisterhood with Sakura. He knew that she had too much pride in her honor as a magus to resort to the methods of Assassin.

He paused to take a sip of his tea before setting it back down and meeting her eyes once again, "So why have you come here, and not the Church?"

"I don't trust Kirei, not to preserve my life," she admitted before hastily rectifying, "I know that you're friends with him, but that just means you should know what I'm talking about. Every once in a while it seems like he's judging in his head whether it'd be worth it to just _off_ you. He's just... _dangerous_."

 _"Just like you,"_ was not spoken, but Harry managed to glean it anyway. He snorted. She was smarter than he'd initially estimated if she knew that Kirei would not act to keep her alive if it even mildly inconvenienced him. Honestly, there was a fair chance he'd toss her in that basement of his rather than deal with her at the height of the war. Harry knew for a fact that Kirei had only "cared" for Tohsaka up until now because he thought that she would make an interesting combatant in the war.

"And yet you trust me enough to I presume seek refuge in my home? We may be friends Rin but I didn't raise you like Kirei."

 _"I'm just like Kirei and you know it, so why are you really here?"_ was not said either, but Rin understood what he was asking.

"Our families have been allies for generations, even despite the war; we have maintained a friendship in spite of these... differences; and..." her eyes drifted to the side before focusing back on him.

"Sakura is my sister."

It took a concentrated effort to keep the surprise off his face. He of course knew this, but never had he heard Rin acknowledge her sister. His impression was that she thought that keeping attachments to Sakura would only make their separation worse. For her to ply her relationship during negotiations was a desperate move.

Still, it worked.

At seeing his impassive face, he saw a flash of panic, "I-I can help you win the war. I'll help you with your magecraft, show you the secrets of Tohsaka jewelcraft. I'll fork over Second Ownership of Fuyuki if you want."

He raised an eyebrow, more in astonishment, although she took it to be something else. The panic grew into fear and she hurled herself to her knees and bowed her head to the floor in a dogeza. "Please!" she begged, "I'll do anything you want, just—just shelter me for the rest of the war."

For a moment, he considered it. The resources of the Tohsaka family were not financially vast, but their slew of properties and Second Ownership lent them a fair amount of status. Not to mention, jewelcraft when properly applied could rival Servants in its thaumaturgical output, even if only briefly and at great expense. Hell, it could even be the tool that gave him what he needed to get out of his pranic slump. The amount of prana stored in even a single Tohsaka gem could probably keep Berserker going for-

" _Sakura is my sister._ "

No, he couldn't make her pay for her safety. She had invoked the name of Sakura in her begging, finally giving Sakura the acknowledgement she'd always sought from her sister.

To him, that made it worth it.

To him, anything for Sakura was worth it.

"You're not going to give me a thing," he declared gruffly, reaching down and dragging Rin to her feet. She was in such a state of shock that she didn't even think to fight him, just stared dumbly as he turned down an offer that would have most magi drooling.

She was still staring in bewilderment as he led her to one of the guest bedrooms.

"You can wait out the rest of the war here, safe behind the bounded fields. The kitchen is stocked with food, but Sakura usually makes meals three times a day anyway so you won't really have to cook if you don't want to."

He turned back to where she was sitting on the corner of the bed, "I'll ask you about what precisely happened to you and your Servant tomorrow. Bath's in the attached bathroom—get yourself cleaned up. You look like hell."

His hand was turning the doorknob when she finally spoke up.

"Why?"

Smiling, he turned back to her and gave a meaningful stare.

"For Sakura."

* * *

Shinji Matou awoke on the floor of his room. After briefly gasping for air, he rolled over on his side and lightly felt the bruises around his throat.

He needed to get out.

He'd screwed up bad, and Harry had narrowly been distracted from _killing_ him, or making him into worm food. If he was still around when Harry got back, his psychopath of a brother would kill him.

But where would he go? He had some cash socked away from his job, but it was only a few hundred—not nearly enough to go on the run. He paused in putting his shoes on. Somewhere, deep inside him, something shifted. The _real_ Shinji, the Shinji that was supposed to marry Sakura, the Shinji that wouldn't stand for being run out of _his_ own home, stirred within the dark recesses of his mind.

He wasn't going to be _evicted_ from the house that was his by _birthright_ by some snot-nosed, crippled, overgrown brat! Magic or no!

No, Shinji thought, he knew people. He had _friends_ , people who would help him out. He knew a guy who was in with the Yakuza, yeah, that was it. A gun, he'd buy himself a gun. Harry wouldn't be expecting it. If he could just put that _fucking_ brat down, everything would return to the way it should be.

Determined, he kicked his sneakers on, threw on his jacket, stuffed a wad of cash in his pocket, and crept out of the quiet manor.

* * *

 _Assassin watched the blue one leave her Master's home. She wanted to follow him. The Master had even expressed intent to kill this one. It would be so easy..._

 _No, she couldn't. The woman from the house of the bowman she'd slain had arrived at the manor. Apparently, the girl sought refuge with her Master. And Assassin's Master had permitted her entrance! Asylum in his home!_

 _She could not question her Master's decision, no, but she also could no leave her Master alone in the house with just his lover and a suspicious magus. Although, she was not sure how much she should worry._

 _The girl's Servant had been useless after all. While Assassin knew that she was an exceptional standout among her class, the Archer had still been pitiful. It had seemed almost relaxed and at home in its Master's home, whereas a proper Servant should be alert and aware at all time._

 _The look in the Heretic's eyes as her hair wrapped around his throat and filleted him open like a fish still made her tingle in pleasure._

 _Still, she resolved that she should not attempt such a thing. The prana required to operate at the level required to kill a Servant had put her Master under an unacceptable amount of strain._

 _Assassin growled to herself internally. She needed to pay more attention_ — _hurting her Master like that had been sloppy. Unacceptable._

 _She would make it up. She would be twice as vigilant. She would slay her Master's threats_ only _if they were imminent. But she would slay them._

 _By the Master would she slay them._

 _Her resolve found once more, she resumed her place kneeling at her Master's side_ _—invisible to the world until she was needed._

* * *

Several hours later, Rin was fresh from the bath and lying on her back, sinking into the mattress Harry had provided her.

That was... not how she was expecting those negotiations to go. Her experience with Harry had her anticipating that he would squeeze her for every single edge she could give him in exchange for his protection. As far as she knew, he was not one to squander potential advantages.

" _For Sakura_."

Was she wrong about him? Was it as simple as that? Had he really given up Second Ownership and an acclaimed thaumaturgical technique simply out of respect for her relation to Sakura? She knew that he and Sakura were together and very close, it was why she'd backed off her initial attempts to court him, but was he held that deep in his affections?

She knew without a doubt that there was something _dangerous_ lurking withing Harry, something hidden just behind his eyes. That entity was what she'd expected to be negotiating with.

Was his love for Sakura really enough to tame that?

What she also knew was that, although he had decided that her relationship to Sakura bought her protection, Rin would not let that stand. She had begged for shelter, yes, but her pride as a magus would not permit her to let Harry give it for free. She would find something to pay him with.

A knock at the door interrupted her train of thought.

"Harry?" she called, turning towards the door before stopping short.

Sakura stood in the doorway to the room, looking pensive. Rin took a moment to marvel at how much her sister had changed over the years. Her hair, once the same black as Rin's, was now a faded violet that fell just past her shoulders. The same had happened to her eyes, which had gone from a vibrant cerulean to a dull purple. Her lack of pupils, Rin knew, only went unnoticed in public thanks to a subtle bit of hypnotism.

Once again, she cursed the name of Zouken Matou. She knew that these were but side-effects of whatever thaumaturgy the old magus was working on Sakura and Harry to make them more "suitable heirs". She knew from when they were younger and she was practicing structural analysis in class that Harry was dying his hair.

He'd politely asked her to refrain from doing so in his presence ever again.

The pair examined one another for another second before Sakura finally spoke up.

"Hello, sister."

Rin gulped. This was a talk she'd been expecting since she took refuge, but she was still woefully unprepared for it.

"You look... well, sister," Rin eventually decided. It was the wrong thing to say, but neither of them acknowledged it. Instead, Sakura took the opportunity to close the door behind her and make her way to the edge of the bed, where she perched herself.

Rin fiddled with the hem of her bathrobe—identical to the one Sakura was currently wearing—belatedly realizing that it was probably one of her spares.

"It's good to see you," she lied. Awkward as it was, this was the first time since the adoption that she'd really been alone with her sister for any length of time. The repressed part of her mind, the part that ached at their separation, was front and center.

Sakura gave a sad smile.

The sound of the ticking clock was all that permeated the room for several more seconds as the two stared at one another. Rin broke the silence once more.

"You hate me, don't you?"

Another silence.

"It's alright, you don't have to answer. I know I abandoned you when you needed me the most. I'm not going to justify what I did, only explain why I did it. To begin, I-I don't know what Zouken did to you, all I know is that it... _changed_ you."

More silence.

"You used to be the mischievous one. Always running around, making messes, and getting into trouble. I remember _I_ always got in trouble for it anyway somehow."

Both girls gave small, melancholy smiles as they reminisced.

"I don't see that girl anymore. That sweet, rambunctious little sister I once knew is dead. Zouken Matou killed her. Standing in her stead is—is the _broken shell_ she left behind. She may resemble the little girl she once was, but I can never accept her as the same person. Not as the same sister. Every time I look at her, all I'm reminded of is my failure, my inaction, of all the ways I could have helped her before she turned into this... doll."

Tears threatened the corners of Rin's eyes, but she carried on.

"So I didn't acknowledge her. Through years of her suffering I just pretended like I didn't know her except as a family acquaintance. While she suffered I closed my eyes. Now, I finally come crawling to her doorstep, not out of love or a desire to reconnect, _but because I thought her fiance could protect me._ "

The last part she spat out bitterly, choking back a sob. Finally, she glanced back up and met Sakura's eyes once again.

"How pathetic am I?"

Finally, Sakura responded. Up until now, she had been patiently indulgent of Rin's self pity, but now her eyes were imperceptibly narrowed.

"I don't think you're pathetic."

Rin's eyes widened as she maintained Sakura's stare.

"I think you're selfish."

Some deep, inner part of Rin was angry at the words, but she quelled it. Sakura was more than entitled to this.

"I think you're weak. I think that rather than face the cruelty wrought on me and your hand in allowing it, you've simply denied your relationship to me. You've lied to and distanced yourself from your role in my life. Rather than the Pharisees like Zouken, you've taken the Pontius Pilate route and simply washed your hands of me."

The next words struck Rin like a physical blow.

"You sicken me."

Sweet, innocent Sakura was now gone. In her place was the vile, spiteful side that she took so much care to hide from Harry. The filthy side.

"I could expound for hours on the agonizing hell my life has been ever since our sisterhood ended, but I'm not going to. I'm not _selfish_ like you. I'm not going to whine about how pathetic I am when I should be apologizing. Instead, I'm going to explain something to you. Harry let you in here and agreed to shelter you without payment. He did so because he believes that having us in the same manor together will help us reconcile."

Horrified, Rin watched the transformation her sister was undergoing. Something buried in her psyche was coming forth. Or perhaps it was always there and the mask was simply dropping. But something was there—something... _dangerous_.

"He was wrong. Now I'm not going to force you out and to your death, Harry would never let me—not when he thinks that we can reconcile, but I am going to force payment from you. You see, Harry's Servant is an unsustainable draw on his circuits. Due to a number of factors, he's in a position where he needs a large influx of prana if he is going to carry on through this war."

Rin swallowed, suddenly feeling like a mouse under the gaze of a snake, "You know that jewelcraft doesn't work for anyone besides the creator of the gem or their direct descendant."

A beatific smile stretched across Sakura's face, "Oh I know. That's why you're going to offer something else."

Sakura watched several emotions mar Rin's features: Confusion. Comprehension. Understanding. Horror. There was only one common way for two magi to quickly exchange large quantities of prana.

"A _tantric_ _ritual?_ " she gasped, scandalized. Both at the thought of her doing _that_ with Harry, and at the thought of _Sakura_ suggesting it.

"Yes. A tantric ritual. I regularly give my prana to him, several times a day. The next time I go to do so, you will assist me. You will give him everything that you are capable of giving. Then, you will retrieve whatever gems you can from your manor and use them to refill yourself. Then, you will give to him again. You will continue to routinely give him prana until the war is over. Afterward, you will go your separate way and we will never speak again. Only after all that will I consider your debt fulfilled. Do you understand?"

Rin stuttered for a minute, trying to simultaneously process several objections at once, before finally blurting out, "He's your _fiance!"_

A cold gaze regarded Rin for a moment and she shivered under it, "Do you think I don't know that? Do you think that I haven't gone over our options? Do you think I enjoy the thought of sharing the man I love with a woman I despise? Or the knowledge that he will likely die if I do not? Do you think I don't _adore_ him with every _fiber_ of my being?"

The last question was nearly shouted, before Sakura composed herself with a deep breath.

"Harry _is_ my life. You think I'm a broken shell—a doll? You can't imagine what I'd be without Harry. That's why I'm going through with this."

Rin could only look upon what had once been her loving sister with shock and confusion in her eyes.

"Another thing," Sakura added casually, "I don't want to burden Harry with the knowledge that I'm coercing you into this. When we go to give him prana, I will explain that you have long harbored feelings for him, and that as your sister I'm willing to tolerate us being together. You will not do or say anything to the contrary for the entire time you stay in this manor."

Once more, a serene smile graced Sakura's unnaturally placid face, "If you breathe a word of this conversation to Harry or reveal the nature of our little arrangement, I'll cut your pretty little throat while you sleep."

* * *

For the first time since the war started, Harry was taking a moment to keep up with his appearance. This took the form of him standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom with a bottle of black hair dye.

His hair had been jet black for the entire first month spent in the pet. After that, it had gradually grown pale. Before he'd invested in the dye, it had been entirely bone-white.

Harry hadn't taken that lying down, though. He didn't have much sense of identity, but he had enough that he took offense to his tormentor altering his appearance. Fortunately, the worms failed for some reason to change the color of his eyes as well, so Harry only had to invest in the darkest hair dye he could purchase commercially.

Of course, there was also the fact that Sakura like his hair dark.

Slowly, he removed his robe, careful to keep it from touching his still-wet hair and examined his body. It didn't look good.

He could trace his entire circuit network from the interconnecting angry red lines that navigated his entire body. Sakura's magecraft had done a good job of gradually healing it over the time since he'd woken up. By the end of the day, it should only be equivalent to a light sunburn.

Still, The Pain was still there. To compensate, Harry closed his eyes and let The Calm fill him.

The Pain and The Calm. The two Ying and Yang forces in Harry's life. The two embodiment of his existence.

The Pain. Zouken. Worms. Eyes. Legs. Circuits. Belts. Starvation. The things that opposed Harry. At the same time, the things that strengthened him. The things that shaped him into what he was. The source of his drive.

On the other hand, The Calm. Sakura. Love. Peace. Patience. Sex. The things that balanced Harry. The things that weakened him. The things that distracted him from doing what was necessary. The things that made his life worth living. The source of his ability to bide his time with Zouken. With the worms. With his _broken_ body. With his eye.

The Pain and The Calm. The two intrinsic powers in Harry's life. If The Calm won, he'd die. If The Pain won, he'd lose himself—lose Sakura.

Neither were acceptable outcomes.

He glanced back down at his watch and saw that the dye was supposed to be dry by that point. For good measure, he blow-dryed his hair and finished cleaning himself up. Right as he turned the sink off, he heard the door creak.

"Sakura, dear?" he crawled out while toweling his face. A female hand reached around and caressed his chest, running her fingernails along his skin.

"Right here, love. Close your eyes," Sakura whispered in his ear. Obligingly, he complied and felt the towel slip away from his face only to be replaced with what felt like a blindfold. A gentle tugging on his waist had him blindly stumbling after his fiancee.

Finally, he reached the bed, where he was gently slid until he was propped up against the headboard by a pile of pillows. His hands were gently stretched out against the wall.

The click of handcuffs were an unexpected, but welcome surprise. To date, Sakura had never been the one to initiate anything kinky. Sex on her part was usually pretty vanilla. It was Harry that had a habit of getting... _experimental_ on his willing victim. She always loved it of course.

Once she was satisfied that he was properly bound, the blindfold came off and he immediately took in the downright _tantalizing_ appearance of his fiancee. Dressed in a set of lacy purple lingerie he'd got her on her last birthday, she was kneeling at the intersection of his two legs—right by his groin.

"We have a special treat for you tonight, love," she blushed, looking adorable in her bashfulness at the brazen technique she was utilizing.

Harry smiled, before her words caught up to him. _We?_

Green eyes met purple appraisingly, before flickering off past Sakura's shoulders.

" _Rin_!" he spluttered, finally noticing the red-faced Tohsaka standing embarrassed at the far edge of the bed. She had a similar body to Sakura's, if a bit slimmer. She was also dressed in an identical set of lingerie as Sakura, only in black.

His eyes flicked back to Sakura, only to stop short at the lack of shock on her face.

"Like I said," she blushed once again, "A special treat."

It took a minute for a proper reply to make its way through Harry's mind.

"A-Are you sure about this?"

Sakura glanced at Rin and managed to convey some meaning that Harry didn't catch, "Oh yes. Rin and I had a... talk earlier. She confessed during our _reconciliation_ that she had always harbored feelings for you, but had suppressed them out of guilt for her treatment of me. But who am I to stand in the way of my sister's feelings? We've decided to share."

Harry could only sputter one response to such an unexpected turn of events.

"A-Are you sure about this?"

Sakura giggled, stroking his chest lovingly. "That's what I love about you, Harry—so devoted. Don't worry. To be perfectly honest, I don't feel that I've been the best possible fiancee of late. Consider this... my way of making it up to you."

"Besides," she chuckled as she eyed the handcuffs, "You're not exactly in a position to refuse."

Harry's eyes snapped to Rin, who was still standing awkwardly to the side.

"And you're okay with this?" he stated more than asked.

Despite this, she replied anyway. He saw the briefest flash of what looked like _conflict_ across her face and her eyes flicked towards Sakura just for a moment before meeting his once again. The conflict melded easily into a seductive smile.

"Of course."


	5. Chapter 5: A Death in the Family

**Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelcome back readers! Neolyph returns once more with another chapter of A Broken Wizard and a Broken Magus! My apologies for the long wait on this chapter. I got writer's blocked on it, so I decided to do another chapter of Darwin, then one chapter turned five before I realized that I hadn't touched this story in a while. Hopefully, the next wait won't be as long.**

 **Now, we return to your regularly scheduled reviews:**

 **Hawkmoon888: I wanted to write Zouken in a way that made sense to me. I don't like characters who are just unremarkable sadists with no depth or motivation. As for prana, Harry is an incredibly prodigious magus, nearly on par with some of the lesser Dead Apostles. In his prime, he can handle Berserker, and Assassins are very prana-light Servants. Both of them fighting at the same time will be a struggle for him, but between Sakura and now Rin helping him out, he can handle the two relatively easily. As for Saber Alter and Rider, well... you'll see.**

 **AnimeA55Kicker: Bear in mind, the selfish thing is purely from Sakura's POV, and as you'll see she's not exactly... stable.**

 **Bob of the A: I've never really like the whole 'stats' aspect of FSN. It rings too much of that bullshit 'power levels' stuff, which to be is an infantile way of comparing strength. If you want stats, assume they're the same as under their default Masters on the Nasuverse wiki.**

 **piddle: Kind of. You'll see.**

 **DalkonCledwin: Yeah, I know about the 'von', but in my head the name runs together better with it. As for a Dead Apostle Master, I'm honestly not super-familiar with Nasuverse, but I'm pretty sure the Grail just picks people, preferably magi, with sufficient motivation. Rita is a magus, and most certainly has a motivation. As for memory, Harry has 'movie amnesia', where he remembers his name and his language. Aside from that, most things are hazy. Zelretch left Harry with his name, but not much else.**

Chapter 5: A Death in the Family

Harry awoke in the morning feeling _wonderful_. It wasn't just the sex, although that probably helped. It was the fact that he'd just received a massive amount of prana from one of the most prodigious magi of the decade. Finally, he had been given the boost he needed to overcome the self-perpetuating pranic deficiency he'd been stuck in since the beginning of the war.

The od that saturated his body had finally completed Sakura's healing rituals, meaning that besides some pleasant aching as his body readjusted he was back to his pre-summoning form. Even the worms were practically _purring_ in contentment as they bathed in the magical energy. He'd forgotten how good this felt.

It was the biggest realization that preoccupied his mind however. He was now in a position to become an active threat in the war. All of the plans he'd been developing for the past few years—plans that had been dashed by his infuriating crippling at the hands of his Servant—were now feasible.

It was a marvelous feeling.

His train of thought went astray as a warm body shifted next to him. Sakura was cuddling into his side as usual, with a contented look on her angelic face. He took a moment to draw resolve from it; after all, it was what he was fighting for. He was fighting to make that face last forever.

Another few moments passed before he realized that the other half of the bed was empty. He checked the antique clock across the room and saw that it was barely dawn.

Odd. He hadn't taken Rin to be an early-riser. Even Sakura who he generally regarded to be without fault didn't usually get up before seven on a weekend, and that was with coffee. Although, he supposed, it was unreasonable to expect the two sisters to share habits like that when they had been apart for so long.

The grumbling in his stomach reared its ugly head and reminded him why it had woken him up. Such a large influx of prana had awakened his slowed metabolism and kicked it into high gear.

Groggily, he slipped out from Sakura's warm grip and dragged himself to the shower. The warm water was like heaven on his freshly-healed skin. Once he was cleaned and refreshed, he donned a dress shirt and pants before making his way to the kitchen.

* * *

Rin was _not_ an early-riser. Despite this very important facet of her personality, she found herself staring into a mug of coffee at five in the morning—in the home of her sister and her sister's fiance no less.

A thousand emotions were fighting for dominance within her consciousness, but none could encapsulate her true feelings.

Part of her felt incredibly violated. Former crush or not, tantric ritual or not, she had just been coerced into _sex_ with her sister's lover. She tried desperately to rationalize it, letting the magus part of her brain rule her mind and tell her that it was just a pranic exchange—a precise and necessary act to ensure her survival and protection during the war. A tax. A toll.

But a pranic ritual doesn't fall asleep next to you making you feel equal parts safe and terrified. A survival tax doesn't make you scream his name even as the sister that threatened to slit you throat glares a smoldering hole through you from behind him.

She wanted to hate him so badly, to write him off as a heartless monster like Kirei, but she couldn't. Something about his love for Sakura had... _tamed_ him, for lack of a better word. No matter how much she tried, she couldn't deny the genuine love and care she'd seen in him last night.

Sakura though...

While Harry's love had taken the edge off his frigid heart, Sakura's it seemed had done the opposite. If Rin's guess was correct, her sister's infatuation had magnified and further fractured her already damaged psyche.

She snorted despite herself. Those two really _were_ perfect for each other. Two broken puzzle pieces that somehow clicked together anyway.

It would be sweet really, if Sakura wasn't a very real threat to her safety. She just hoped that she could keep her head down long enough to wait out the war and escape before Sakura decided she was a threat to her relationship with Harry.

A steady, familiar series of clicks slowly tapped in Rin's direction. She caught it just in time to compose herself and turn to greet Harry as he entered the kitchen.

"Rin!" he greeted cheerfully, and despite his cane Rin saw that he almost had a _skip_ in his step. "Good morning!"

"Good morning..." she greeted back hesitantly. This was... not the Harry she knew. Even at school his false persona leaned more towards strong and silent than school idol like hers did. Aside from when he looked at Sakura, she couldn't even recall a single time she'd seen him smile.

Harry noticed her hesitance and chuckled slightly. "Don't worry," he assured her, "I'm not always this cheery at five A.M. Today's just a... special occasion. Thanks to your little transfer last night, I've finally recovered from my pranic deprivation."

Rin nodded, finally connecting some dots in her head. "How _did_ you end up in that, if you don't mind my asking? Sakura was vague on the details when she asked me to take part in the ritual. She just mentioned it had to do with your Servant."

"Servant," snorted Harry, pouring himself a cup of coffee. "Bloody thing's more akin to a jet engine than a Heroic Spirit. Just summoning it nearly caused my circuits to self-combust. They were damaged from the strain and since then I've been so tapped out for prana that any slight drain would put me into the red. Thanks to you, I've finally got enough prana to recover and be aggressive in the War."

"Aren't you a little afraid of talking about your Servant like that?" muttered Rin, looking left and right as if expecting a wrathful Lancer or Caster to suddenly manifest. She conveniently ignored that the first thing she'd made _her_ Servant do was clean her living room.

"Hardly," Harry snorted before taking a sip from his steaming mug. "Something tells me Berserker's not the sensitive type."

Rin froze.

Berserker.

* * *

The next thing she knew, she was lying on the tile floor of the kitchen, and Harry was leaning over her.

"Bloody hell Rin, are you all right?"

She winced. The back of her head, already bruised from her slip in her bathroom had collided hard with the tile floor.

With gentle hands, Harry lifted her to a sitting position and moved to examine her wound. "You're bleeding," he observed, before snatching a cloth napkin from the table and pressing it delicately to the injury. Rin hissed, but gritted her teeth.

"What happened?" he asked. "We were talking and you just suddenly screamed and fainted."

Rin took a moment to calm her rapid pulse and thought back to the conversation, trying to remember what had happened.

Suddenly, it hit her.

Hesitantly, she looked up at Harry who was still leaning over her and holding the napkin against her head with a look of concern plastered across his face. She had to fight the urge to shriek and recoil.

"Which..." she began before swallowing, "which Servant did you say was yours again?"

Harry's eyebrow raised slightly. "Berserker," he said simply, "Why?"

That did it. Rin's breathing heightened once more. Her body shook involuntarily in Harry's arms. Blood pounded heavily through her head and she could feel each and every beat of her heart as it hammered against her chest.

Harry noticed her terror and immediately realized that he seemed to be the problem. Maintaining the pressure on the back of her head, he gently lowered her back to the tile floor of the kitchen and laid her head on the napkin. He analyzed her for several seconds, trying to deduce the source of her fear, before it finally hit him.

"Berserker attacked you two nights ago, didn't he?" he stated more than asked. Rin nodded slightly in confirmation and he sighed. "I apologize for that. I sent him out scouting last night and it seems he got carried away. He killed your Servant, I take it?"

To his surprise, Rin shook her head. "No," she said softly, "your Servant just attacked the Einzbern's Saber before we split up and ran. I've never been so terrified. Archer took me back home and while he was drawing me a bath I... I made use of my father's liquor cabinet. I ended up passing out and when I woke up in the morning I found Archer... dead in my bathroom."

She choked out a sob, and Harry stroked her hair gently like he did when Sakura was upset. "His throat was slit," she whispered. "The tap was still on and the bathroom was filled with bloody water. _His_ blood. I slipped in it. I drowned in it. It went _inside_ me."

"Shhh," Harry said softly as he continued his ministrations. "It's okay now. You're safe here. I'm not going to let anything happen to you, I promise."

Despite herself, Rin couldn't help but latch on to the words. With a soft cry, she flung herself into his arms and buried her face into his chest. Her tears soaked his pristine dress shirt, but he didn't seem to mind. He just whispered calming words and rubbed her back gently.

It was like this that Sakura found them.

"Oh dear," she said suddenly, causing Rin to jerk in Harry's arms, "is everything alright?"

Rin wanted to jump out of Harry's embrace, but she knew that would only make things worse. Harry broke it instead, turning around to look at his fiancee. "Good morning love. Rin here was telling me how her Servant was... taken out of play, and by the end of it she was rather distraught. It was quite traumatic."

"I see," replied Sakura, before striding over and pulling Rin to her feet and away from Harry. The move appeared gentle, but Rin was fairly certain her sister's grip would leave bruises. "You should have said something last night, sister," she scolded. "You know I'm here for you."

With that, Sakura pulled Rin into a hug and the air grew more sinister.

" _What the hell do you think you were doing back there?_ " she whispered into her ear, and Rin's blood went cold.

"I—" began Rin before Sakura's squeeze tightened to suffocating levels.

" _Shhh. No talking. Just listening_ ," she said softly, venom lacing her sweet tone. " _Because I don't feel I made myself clear last night, you may consider this your one warning: Harry. is. **mine**_ **.** _If I see you try something like that again, I will introduce you to my grandfather's familiars. If I can't get under your skin, I assure you that they can. Quite literally. Are we clear?"_

"Ye—" Rin tried once more before being cut off again.

" _I said no talking,_ " Sakura hissed, and Rin could only nod weakly. " _Good girl. Now, play along in three, two, one._ "

"Are you feeling alright now?" she said, concern dripping from her voice as she pulled back and stared meaningfully.

"Y-Yes," Rin said, using her crying to hide her fear. "I think I'm okay. I'll just... go freshen up in my room. We'll talk later."

As her sister turned and departed as quickly as she dared, Sakura went back to Harry and helped him to his feet. She gave him a long morning kiss, internally boiling with rage at the scent of Rin on his shirt.

"It looks like she got your shirt all wet," she observed casually. "Let's go upstairs and change. It's too early to be all dressed up anyway. In fact, let's do something that doesn't involve clothes at all."

Harry planted his good foot to prevent his enthusiastic fiancee from dragging him back to the bedroom. "I can't," he said. "I'm finally recovered and I need to grab something from across town. Now that I can fully channel prana, it's safe to make excursions. Go catch up with your sister. I'm leaving Berserker behind to protect you while I'm out."

Sakura pouted, but ceded to his instructions. "Be safe," she said, kissing him once more.

"I will," he promised.

* * *

 _Assassin had to admit, she was growing to like her Master's consort. Her casual dominance over the black witch who had been partnered with the white heretic was lovely to observe. The fact that she had also used it to help heal and empower her Master simply cemented her approval._

 _She would be a worthy Mistress._

 _The time was coming where she would reveal herself to her Master. She had kept an eye on the encroaching threat, and soon she would be able to dispatch it before him to finally prove her worth and secure his love._

 _Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

* * *

Caster's mind swam through the inky blackness of what she could call Hell if she lacked imagination. Pure, unrefined torrents of Pain coursed through her very being. She had no defense against it, no answer. It was all she could do to hold on to her sanity.

Every moment she was immersed in it, it chipped away at her mind. She could feel the constant urge to give in and surrender to it, growing more tempting by the second.

She was incapable of beating it. It had no intelligence to outmaneuver, no cunning to exploit. It was simply an infinite Pain. Infinite hunger. Infinite suffering. Infinite cold. Infinite death.

It was an incomprehensible flood of all the evils of the world. She was pulled uncontrollably by its current, unable to find anything to latch onto.

As the last remnants of her consciousness began to fade one final, desperate idea flittered through her mind. A last ditch effort to at least ensure she was avenged. If there was one thing she was good at, it was vengeance.

Instead of fighting the incursion into her soul, she let go. Let it encroach. Let it fill her. Instead of breaking her apart one piece at a time, she let it swallow her whole.

As it consumed her, she became a part of it.

* * *

Rita watched in fascination her Servant's transformation. For the last day, her comatose form had lay screaming in the center of the containment circle, but it had finally fallen still. The black, tar-like tendrils that had been creeping over her body finally solidified and engulfed her completely.

The Servant's body, already made of pure prana, had been consumed and assimilated with the nightmarish entity. It rippled and distorted, suddenly exploding outwards towards the edge of the circle. An illusory boundary sprang to life around the perimeter, crackling with pranic energies. The creature shrieked and recoiled like a wounded animal. It's endlessly shifting form expressed clear agitation, but it stayed clear of the circle's edges.

Good. Leash training was always the hardest part of breaking an animal.

It was a shame Caster hadn't been able to merge consciousness with it. She'd summoned that Servant with the hope that its mental fortitude would allow it to maintain control under the strain, but it seemed she had failed.

Oh well. Even in its current state, Angra Mainyu was a powerful tool. She wouldn't be able to directly control it now, but it would serve as a sufficient guard dog. Now, all she had to do was bait the enemy Servants into her trap. Her thralls had reported a few inquisitive meatbags poking about at the bottom of the mountain, but they'd gotten into a fight with one another and run off.

She couldn't allow that. It would take too long for the Servants to whittle one another down. Patience was not her strong suit.

Her former Servant's prana siphoning had been an insufficient unifying factor it seemed. She'd have to resort to something more... aggressive. Something impossible to ignore.

What she needed... was casualties.

* * *

A nondescript white van slowly drove into a desolate naval yard. Countless rusting shipping containers were stacked along the edge of the pier, long ago abandoned and looted. Two homeless addicts huddled around a blazing trashcan, oblivious to the world. They didn't even look up at the van when it pulled past them.

The van slowly rolled to a stop near the shipping containers. There was a brief pause, before the rear of the van opened. First out was an enormous black doberman, which immediately sniffed the air warily. After a moment, Harry emerged, holding the chain that connected to the dog's collar. Having confirmed that no detectable magi or Servants were in the vicinity, he felt safe to step out onto the pier, cane in hand.

Most magi in his opinion underestimated the usefulness of dogs as familiars. Sure, they weren't as mobile or nondescript as birds, but they were ubiquitous, loyal, and in possession of incredibly keen senses. Not to mention, the larger ones could kill a weak magus off his guard.

Brutus in particular was handy for avoiding ambushes. Just like magi learned to detect prana through their senses, a canine familiar could be trained to detect it by scent.

In his experience, very few magi would bother to mask their od well enough to avoid such an obscure method of perception.

Tapping his cane along the potholed pavement of the pier, he walked with Brutus at his side into the maze of containers. He had made an extensive study of the techniques and strategies employed in the last Grail War. Particularly, he had taken an interest in Kiritsugu Emiya, the Magus Killer.

To compensate for his shortcomings as a magus, Emiya had resorted to intense planning, ground preparation, misdirection, and cheap tactics. This pragmatism appealed to Harry, and he had endeavored to mimic it. As such, many of the mystic codes he'd crafted for usage in the War were not kept in his workshop, the most obvious place for them.

Instead, he had small stashes of gear and supplies scattered at places like this throughout the city. This one in particular contained his masterpiece, however.

He came to the end of a narrow alley of containers, stopping at a seemingly random one. The rusted padlock had obviously been cut by some junkies looking for something to steal long ago, and the door hung slightly ajar.

"Guard," he instructed Brutus, unclipping the leash. The doberman immediately laid down outside the container, looking left and right vigilantly.

His back watched, Harry pulled the creaking door all the way open and entered. A quick aria caused a spot of light to appear on the ceiling. The container was largely empty. The only contents were some rotting cardboard boxes and a few used needles.

Ignoring these, he moved to the very back corner of the container. With his shoe, he brushed the dirt and debris aside to reveal a tiny hole the size of a dime in the floor. He leaned on his good leg and lifted his cane, running a hand along the side and activating one of the alchemical circles contained within. There was a small crackle of blue electricity as the end of the cane transformed into a small metal hook.

Using the wall to support himself, he worked the hook into the hole and with a pull a small square of the floor lifted up to reveal a metal canister the size of a propane tank.

Not in the mood to lift it up, he transformed his cane back, pressed its tip to the ground, and transmuted the earth under the canister upwards. It popped out of the hole easily enough, and Harry smiled slightly. It was good to use magecraft again.

He reached out and twisted the handle embedded in the top of the canister, cracking the seal. A seemingly solid, shimmering metal filled the canister. He gritted his teeth, activated his circuits fully, and plunged his hand in. Immediately, the metal began absorbing even more prana than Berserker did and Harry thanked the Root for Rin's aid. Had she not come along, he would never have been able to employ this. Finally, the flood of prana tapered down to a trickle.

"Hello Aegis," he muttered, relishing in the feeling of power as the metal flowed over his skin like a suit of armor. With a pleased smirk, he tossed his cane to the side and strolled steadily across the length of the container.

It was good to walk again.

Aegis was perhaps his greatest masterpiece as a magus, even if he'd cheated slightly to create it. He'd first been inspired three years prior to craft the armor during a typical day in the Fuyuki computer lab. He'd been assigned a paper on artificial intelligence, and had immediately been intrigued by his findings.

To provide background, Harry's specialties as a magus were the fields of alchemy, formalcraft, and material transmutation; the first because it was a very solid and concrete field, the second because it could achieve great power through careful preparation and sacrifice, and the third because of its potent combat applications. All three tied into the creation of Aegis.

Certain alchemical rituals allowed for inanimate objects to be imbued with a degree of sentience, but that made it susceptible to a great deal of manipulation from a clever magus. Material transmutation allowed for an inanimate object to be programmed with predetermined commands, but it was exhausting to write in more than a few basic commands without falling into the risk of dangerous contradictions. Formalcraft allowed from weaker magi to compensate for low od by relying heavily on making use of ambient prana, but it was useless in combat due to the time it took to craft physical circles.

During the course of Harry's research on artificial intelligence, he learned that special languages had actually been created simply to input very precise commands to machines, and that large enough strings of commands combined with sufficient processing power could make false life and intelligence.

Some more research revealed that the largest team pursuing A.I development was located in Tokyo. His concept in mind, he'd driven out and... recruited them. Their hypnotized minds had been given a working understanding of magecraft and set to work.

It had been found that the more noble and supernatural metals, mithril in particular, had nearly infinite processing power when it came to inputted commands. He'd nearly bankrupted the ludicrously wealthy Makiri family to get enough for the suit, but he did. After that, it was simply a matter of finding the right commands.

Several prototypes were constructed and discarded before one was finally crafted that he was satisfied with. And so the armor was crafted, with enough raw intelligence to learn, interpret, and intelligently carry out commands without actually possessing the weaknesses of thaumaturgically-given intelligence.

Of course, verbal commands were a hassle to he used alchemical rituals to link it to his mind like a familiar. This allowed him to synchronize and work in tandem with it.

Finally, the massive intelligence of the armor allowed it to manipulate its structure down to the molecule. This included the formation of magic circles. It could take a sample of his blood when needed, and combine that with molecular-sized magic circles and a small amount of od to enact a host of rituals from powering itself with ambient mana to dissipating and absorbing an enemy's mystery.

The end product was an nearly-sentient suit of armor that thought a million times faster than anything else, immune to mental attacks yet capable of instantaneously forming billions of thaumaturgical circles that would require an experience magus hours of work.

If the Mage's Association ever found about it, they'd probably kill him for his heresy, and then confiscate it to see if they could make their own. He had fundamentally changed thaumaturgical combat, not by some special skill or trait, or through ancient, esoteric techniques. No, he'd revolutionized magecraft through sheer cleverness and by doing what other would not.

Grinning to himself, he spun on his good leg and launched a roundhouse kick at the wall of the container with his bad leg. Aegis empowered his movement and his metal-coated foot tore through the wall like it was tissue paper. He nearly tripped at the unfamiliar strength, but the armor steadied him.

He laughed out loud, his mirth echoing through the container. It almost felt like cheating.

* * *

"I want to go out and do something," Illya whined as kicked her legs against the bed childishly. Saber's golden eyes opened in irritation from where she was kneeling on the carpet.

"Our presence in the city was revealed last night. If Assassin or its Master are at all paying attention, they now know we are in Fuyuki. A daytime excursion is a risk. Assassin could target us covertly, but I could not retaliate without jeopardizing the secrecy of Magecraft."

Illya huffed and pouted. "Well what do _you_ want to do then?"

Once again, Saber let out a cleansing breath to remind herself that killing this child would leave her bereft of prana. "I was going to meditate until nightfall. It will allow us to conserve energy until nightfall, at which point we can foray out to attack the mountain once again."

Several seconds ticked by on the clock until Illya calmly slid off the bed and curiously mimicked Saber's kneeling pose, closing her eyes in an attempt to mediate.

"Am I doing it right?" she whispered loudly, and Saber's eyebrow twitched.

"Yes," she ground out through gritted teeth.

Several more second later, Illya fidgeted uncomfortably. She attempted to readjust her aching knees but accidentally tipped over onto Saber's lap. The blonde Servant shifted her off with an annoyed growl and resumed her focus.

Illya righted herself and knelt once more, closing her eyes in childish concentration. She fidgeted several more times, but managed to avoid falling over again.

"I'm not feeling anything."

"That's it!" Saber snapped, rising to her feet. "What do you want?"

From her place at the Servant's feet, Illya blinked. Her brow furrowed in thought.

"Ice cream," she declared solemnly. "I want ice cream."

* * *

"I've learned something you may be interested in," said Kirei Kotomine.

The golden-haired king sprawled across his couch playing the latest God of War and drinking a goblet of wine didn't even turn, although he did raise an eyebrow.

"During the previous war, you found the Servant Saber to be worthy of your affections, yes? Well, I had Lancer investigating the temple two days ago, and while reviewing his memories of the incident just now, I found something intriguing."

Once again Gilgamesh continued playing his game, but a note of irritation entered his reply. "Cease your buildup, priest, and state your discovery."

Kirei grinned slightly out of the king's sight, "It seems she had deigned to participate in this conflict as well, although I confess she appears... different than I remember."

That got Gilgamesh's attention. "Different how?" he snapped with a tone that would have been frantic had he not been Gilgamesh, not even pausing as he whirled around to glare at the priest.

"It would be best if you saw for yourself," he said diplomatically. "Lancer followed her and her Master back to the Royale Hotel, although he wasn't sure which room. Unless you seek to search for her through the hotel, it would humbly suggest waiting until tonight when they most certainly leave to seek targets."

"A fair idea priest," Gilgamesh replied grudgingly. He despised the idea of anything about his beloved Saber changing. She had been the perfect queen for him during the last war. He would be... most cross should she have changed.

* * *

"You sure about this man?"

"Yeah," snarled Shinji, "did you bring it or what?"

Tetsuo sighed. Never let it be said he didn't try. Looking left and right through the alley, he reached into his coat and removed a paper bag. Turning the opening towards Shinji, he opened it slightly to reveal a semi-automatic handgun.

"It's got a full clip," he said. "Should be enough to solve whatever trouble you've gotten yourself into."

"Hope so," Shinji muttered, pulling the gun out of the bag to examine it more closely. Tetsuo snatched the gun immediately and crammed it back in.

"For fuck's sake man, don't be flashing something like that. It doesn't leave the bag until you're way clear of here. Also, you get busted with that, you've never even heard of me, understand?"

Shinji nodded distractedly. "Of course, of course. This'll... this'll put someone down hard, right? They're not getting back up?"

"Not unless they're a fucking zombie. Kicks like a mule though, so make sure you hit your first shot. Now get out of here, and don't get into any more trouble, alright?"

"Right. Will do Tetsuo. See you on the other side. I hope, anyway."

* * *

As Harry pulled the van back into the garage and sent Brutus out to patrol the yard, he faced a moment of indecision. His cane lay in the seat next to him, and he was unsure of whether or not to take it. On the one hand, he despised its necessity. It was the symbol of everything Zouken had taken from him. On the other hand, it was a potent mystic code and helped keep Aegis a secret. Not to mention it was disarming.

Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, he sighed and grabbed the cursed cane.

Now that he was on a comfortable war footing, it was time to address the matter of intelligence. He needed to get the full details on Rin's unfortunate excursion that apparently ended in the death of her Servant. A slit throat in her home with no fight sounded like the work of Assassin. In all honesty, that was probably the Servant that worried him the most. Assassins preyed on vulnerabilities, and he had an enormous one in Sakura.

There was also the matter of the Einzbern Master that Rin had encountered. It would be best to learn everything he could about them. The Einzberns had a reputation for taking cheap exploits for the sake of the War. In the last one, they'd hired Emiya, after all.

He removed his scarf and coat as he entered, making his way up to the guest room he'd assigned to Rin. When he reached it, he paused for a moment and knocked.

"Come in," he heard Rin call after a brief rustle. He entered, and was faced with Rin, dressed in one of Sakura's outfits.

"I didn't bring any clothes," she explained, "and Sakura was... kind enough to lend me some. Did you need something? Because I was just headed back to the estate to fetch some clothes and other things."

"Yes," he said, "actually. I was hoping to inquire about the event of two days ago now that you're... calmer. Now that I'm in a position to be proactive, I need actionable intelligence to use as a basework for planning."

Rin gulped nervously, but nodded and sat on the corner of the bed. Harry limped over to a chair in the corner and seated himself.

"Specifically, I wanted to know about the Einzbern duo and your Servant's death."

A spike of fear coursed through Rin once again, but she stamped it out ruthlessly. "Right. Well, the Einzbern duo appeared to be rather unorthodox. The Master introduced herself as Illyasviel Emiya. She didn't say she was the Einzbern representative, but she was clearly a homunculus and her Servant was Saber. Not to mention, she's an _Emiya_. He worked for the Einzberns in the last war. I'm unsure as to why a homunculus has taken his name, but all the pieces are there. Her Servant was hard to identify. Female, petite, and blonde, in heavy black plate. She seemed to have a grudge against magi."

Harry nodded, mind racing. There weren't a lot of female Sabers. It should be possible to narrow down. "Physical abilities? Master's temperament?"

" _Very_ strong. Your Servant kept her on the defensive when he attacked, but she went blow-for-blow with him. As for the Master, she had the appearance and personality of a child. Very pleasant, very formal. Seemed trusting. She was willing to ally to take out Caster."

"Good," he muttered. If she was amenable to alliance, it would make dispatching Caster that much easier. "And... your Servant?"

"Not... not much more than what I told you. The only other thing I remember is that the word 'Heretic' was written on the wall... in his blood."

Harry sighed. "I'm sorry you had to see that."

Still, it provided a little insight. 'Heretic' implied a certain degree of religious motivation. Hassan-i-Sabbah possibly, or maybe even the Sicarii. Didn't narrow it down much, but it was something.

"Thank you for sharing that with me," he said gratefully. "Now, let me drive you to your manor. It will be faster than walking and you'll be able to carry more."

Rin wavered, thinking of Sakura's warning, before finally relenting. This was innocent enough, and it would help sell the lie. She rose with him and together they made their way downstairs. Harry put his coat and scarf back on before opening the front door.

"Shinji!" he exclaimed in surprise. "I knew I forgot something..."

What happened next was a blur. Shinji jumped in fright, then reached into a paper bag and pulled out a gun. Harry instinctively moved to shield Rin, calling up a flame mystery over Aegis and summoning Berserker.

Then he was beaten to the punch. A black miasma materialized behind Shinji and suddenly the gun was clattering to the ground, along with his right hand. Blood spurted through the air towards him and Rin, only to suddenly freeze midair as if controlled by an unearthly force.

Shinji only had time to scream for a second before his body joined his blood in its unnatural stillness. Harry blinked in surprise. It was as if Shinji's body had been placed in stasis. Not even his stump bled.

"Master," breathed a female, fanatical voice behind Harry. He whirled around, feeling an odd drain on his circuits. Berserker materialized in the parlor, adding to the strain.

He faced the parlor, which seemed empty save Berserker. Then he looked down.

Bowing slavishly at his feet was a cloaked woman. His kneejerk impulse was to have Berserker reduce her to wet meat, but she _had_ just disabled Shinji. And she'd had the opportunity to take a shot at him earlier, if her stealth was anything to judge by, yet she hadn't. That won her the benefit of the doubt. Or at least, not immediate death.

Although he suspected the answer, he asked anyway. "Who are you?"

"In life, I was called Zealot," she answered, not so much as twitching from her subservient position. "You would know me as Assassin. I shall answer to whatever you would call me, Master."

"Master?" he asked hesitantly, ignoring Rin who had frozen beside him. "You're not my Servant."

Assassin's prone form wavered slightly. "Respectfully, Master, I am, so long as you would have me. You summoned me alongside the mindless one. In your weakened state, I feared that you would discard me to conserve energy, so I hid myself until I could prove my worth to you. I beg your forgiveness for my cowardly deception."

"How?" Harry asked after a stunned silence. "The Grail isn't supposed to grant two Servants to the same Master."

"I heard your call, Master, the one provided by the vile one. You sought a mindless beast that could stalk unseen. There was no suitable candidate willing to answer. Rather than let it dissipate, I... split your summons. I once again beg your forgiveness, Master. It is due to my selfishness that you were so drained by performing two simultaneous, powerful summons."

Harry couldn't believe his luck. It was a ridiculous claim, but all the pieces fit: the extra command seals, the crippling drain, the failed incantation.

Still...

"Prove it," he demanded.

" _My life is yours, Master,_ " she stated, her voice directly in his mind _. "_ _If you truly do not trust me, have the mindless one end me here. Perhaps in death, I will prove my loyalty._ "

Well, that did it. Harry's shoulders slumped slightly, the tenseness leaving his frame. Only a Servant could mentally communicate like that, unless this was some kind of Noble Phantasm. But in that case, this was an incredibly over-elaborate assassination attempt. No, the Assassin in front of him was being honest.

Speaking of which...

"I take it you're responsible for the death of Tohsaka's Servant?"

The hood dipped forward in what Harry interpreted as a nod. "I was following the mindless one and the blue one, when I saw their fight with the black and white ones. When they retreated, I followed and ambushed the heretic to remove him from your path."

Harry sighed, his head turning to glance left towards Rin who was... still frozen. And not in shock.

"What did you to her?" he snapped in alarm.

Assassin quivered in fear and lust at the casual dominance in his tone. "She was about to attack me when I announced myself, so I used my Ichor of Reverie to control her circuits, just as I have done with the blue one's entire body."

Curiously, Harry turned to examine his erstwhile brother. Shinji was still immobile on the spot, not even blood spurting from his open stump. His face was locked in a horrified rictus of pain as he gazed at his arm. Rin, true to Assassin's words, had her right hand extended slightly and her fingers were halfway through forming the gesture necessary for a _Gandr_ curse. She was much less immobilized, her eyes glaring at Assassin fearfully, but still moving, and every once in a while her body twitched and shivered.

"Release her."

"Yes, Master," said Assassin, and with no fanfare Rin suddenly collapsed to the floor and scooted away from the kneeling figure like she was on fire.

Harry moved over and laid his hand on her shoulder, finally snapping her out of it. "It's alright, Rin," he said gently, "she's on our side. Go find Sakura and calm yourself down. I'll clean up down here, then we can all have some tea."

"Tea..." muttered Rin weakly, rising as if in a daze and stumbling up towards her room. Harry waited until he heard the click of the door before turning back to Assassin.

"Stand up," he ordered, and like a wave she flowed up to a standing position. Now that he wasn't standing tall over her, he could see beneath her hood. He had to admit that she was objectively beautiful, with a triangular face, luscious golden curls, and assets that dwarfed even Sakura's. All of this was cloaked in an ornate hooded robe that covered her all the way down to her feet.

He'd have to question her about her background and capabilities later, but for the moment there was only one important question. "This... Ichor of Reverie you're using, can you use it to make Shinji move?"

"If you desire, Master."

"Good," he replied, before walking past her and making a gesture to follow. "Bring him along this way."

Together, he, Assassin, and Berserker descended into the basement with a puppeted Shinji towing behind them. Berserker had to astralize occasionally to fit through the narrow passageways, but he fit most of the time. Harry's cane clicked ominously against the stone steps, and the crest worms could be heard chittering excitedly at the sound of someone approaching.

He halted at the edge of the pit and looked down into the sea of giant worms writhing to and fro beneath him. Assassin stood at his left shoulder, and she positioned Shinji to his right. Berserker loomed over all three of them.

With a contemptuous flick of his wrist, his cane switched to his left hand and his right snatched the front of Shinji's shirt and thrusted him out over the pit so that his feet could barely touch the edge of the pit. Normally, he wouldn't have been strong enough for this, but with Aegis it was laughably easy.

"I think you can release him now, Assassin. Except his arm. Make sure he doesn't bleed out until I'm done with him."

Assassin nodded and Shinji immediately shrieked and kicked his legs, trying to gain footing on the edge, but Harry had him firmly out past his reach. "Oh Christ, oh fuck," he whimpered, latching his hands onto Harry's wrists in panic. His eyes locked on Harry's face, which at that moment resembled a Balkan stone carving of Satan.

"You crossed the line, Shinji. Not that I blame you, since I did plan on doing this to you yesterday before I got interrupted, but instead of rolling over and taking it like the rat you are, you tried to kill me. I have to admit, I'm almost impressed. I honestly didn't think you had it in you. Oh well."

With that, he shoved Shinji backwards and released his shirt. The blue-haired boy screamed as he plummeted towards the worms. Moments before he reached them, Harry flicked his wrist and a spike of silver metal shot towards Shinji, wrapping around his ankle like a snake and pulling him to an agonizing stop mere inches above the worms. Several of them leapt at him like fish leaping from river, but with a thought from Harry the metal retracted and pulled an upside-down Shinji to a stop right in front of him.

"Oh you didn't think I was going to let you off that easy, did you brother?" he sneered. "After everything you tried to do to Sakura? No, this is bigger than me. I still think I let you off too easy after your little... _indiscretion_ with her. Allow me to remedy that."

With that, multiple silvery tendrils emerged from Harry's shoulders and started flinging Shinji through the air. Like some sort of demented carnival ride, they would let him freefall to inches above the worms before grabbing his ankles and tossing him back upwards in a spiral, only to be caught once more and spun around like a top and left to fall one more.

He screamed and cried and begged, and Harry smiled the whole way through. Finally, after ten minutes of flight, Harry had a single tendril wrap itself around Shinji's throat and slowly lower him feet-first into the starving worms.

Shinji howled as the first one took a bite from his Achilles tendon. The noises he made stopped being something so coherent as a howl once a sufficient hole was made in his leg and they started burrowing _inside_ him. With no prana to sate them, they began taking what what they wanted directly. His body spasmed involuntarily as the worms started on his nervous system, before finally with a wet, choking gasp his body went limp.

That, Harry concluded, was one of the single most satisfying things he'd ever done.

Assassin shivered beside him, and Harry turned towards her. "Are you cold? I know it gets a bit chilly down here. Don't worry, we'll be heading back upstairs soon."

The hooded Servant's gaze locked on him with laser intensity, and a serene smile grew across her face.

"No, Master. I'm not cold in the slightest."


	6. Chapter 6: Tunnel Vision

**Hello again internet, Neolyph here with another chapter of A Broken Wizard and a Broken Magus! I don't have a ton of stuff to say in the A.N, other than that this chapter contains my first lemon, although it will be posted in a separate story. Remember to read and review. When I'm down, reviews are what motivate me to keep writing.**

 **Now for reviews!**

 **Nightmare723764: In a sense. I hope to do it a little better than Lupine Horror, but kind of.**

 **Wernnon: Yes I am going to the Potterverse after this arc, just like I did in the original. The difference will be where and when. And he will eventually end up as Zelretch's apprentice, much like Rin ended up in canon.**

 **Shinku Ryuuga: Assassin is a canon Servant, the No-Name Assassin. This chapter will explain why she doesn't fit the description.**

 **Rimtuuk: Well, hopefully this chapter will suit you a little better.**

 **DalkonCledwin: That's true about Kiritsugu and Kirei, but both of them are anomalies among magi, and Harry is reading from Kiritsugu's playbook. Gilgamesh is an unknown and no familiar is going to detect an Assassin. As for the female Sabers, it is some real counter-intuitive shit to think that a ton of male heroes were genderflips.**

 **Now on with the show!**

Chapter 6: Tunnel Vision

As the crest worms consumed the last of the late Shinji Matou, Harry knelt down at the edge of the pit to retrieve the small notebook that had fallen out of the older boy's pocket during his struggling. He smiled slightly at the Book of False Attendance, an idea forming in his head.

This one would no longer be necessary, however, so with a pulse of prana he dissolved it and let its command seal flow back into him. It reappeared on his arm with a painful burning sensation.

"Come," he instructed his two Servants, switching his cane back to his right hand and ascending the stairs back to the manor. For once, the worms behind him didn't shriek in disappointment.

Despite knowing that she was hovering at his shoulder, Assassin's presence was otherwise undetectable to him. Her footstep was inaudible, her breath silent, and her clothing muffled. In short she was the polar opposite of Berserker who clumsy staggered up the narrow passageway with all the ease and subtlety of a Sherman tank.

Quite a pair, they were.

"Assassin," he said offhandedly, "tell me about yourself."

"Ahh, where should I begin, Master?"

Harry shrugged. "Where are you from?"

"I am from Persia, although apparently it is called Iran now, Master."

"Really?" Harry inquired, pausing near the end of the stairs to turn and remind himself of his Servant's light skin, blue eyes, and blonde curls. "You don't look Persian."

Assassin bowed her head slightly to conceal her face beneath her hood, and when she straightened Harry found himself face to face with an entirely different woman. Where there had once been Victorian-esque features were now those of a thin and reedy Middle Eastern girl. A ludicrous bosom and curves had been traded for a petite, skinny frame. After a few moments of examination, she bowed her head again and resumed her original form.

"During my studies, I learned how to alter my visage in order to appeal to a target. When I felt your summons, I surmised that you hailed from the land known as England, and assumed a fitting form to match your tastes. Does it, Master?"

Harry swallowed involuntarily, somewhat concerned at the notion of Assassin 'altering her visage' to meet his 'tastes'. Nevermind the fact that she'd confirmed his suspicion that he'd been British prior to Zouken kidnapping him. He'd spoken English with the accent, but he'd never been sure.

As they finally exited the basement, Harry turned and made for the parlor. "Keep whatever form you're comfortable with. Where did you study altering your visage?"

"I was taken in as an orphan and raised by the Old Men of the Mountain."

"So you're a Hassan-i-Sabbah yourself, then?" Harry asked excitedly. He'd been right about the religious motivation.

Immediately, he knew he'd struck a nerve as Assassin tensed up like a bowstring. "I... was never given the title, Master. I spent my whole life training for it, but in the end, the elders found me wanting. I could only recreate the Zabaniya techniques of past Hassan-i-Sabbahs, but I could not call on my own. The title was given to my rival."

At seeing the woman so distressed, Harry's 'Sakura Instincts' kicked in and he immediately sought to comfort her. He turned to grip her shoulder affirmingly. "Well I've only seen you use two I believe, and I'm already impressed. How many do you know?"

Assassin's soft blue eyes darted to the hand on her shoulder before flicking to read the entirety of its owners face. Hesitantly, her body loosened a fraction. "Eighteen," she said, a tentative note in her voice, "from the eighteen masters before me. I studied and mastered each of their miracles. When I presented them to the elders, they called me a childish imitator."

"Eighteen?" Harry demanded harshly and his grip instinctively tightened. "You can use the techniques of _all_ eighteen Hassan-i-Sabbahs before you?"

"Yes," Assassin whimpered.

"And the elders called you _childish_?"

Another nod. At this point, Harry looked up to see the affect his words were having on the Servant and moved to hastily correct the damage. "That's wonderful!" he assured her glowingly. "Your elders were either foolish enough to discard you or wise enough to fear you. You, Assassin... are _precisely_ what I need to secure victory in this war."

Assassin was silent for a long moment, before Harry suddenly found himself engulfed between two fleshy mounds. He struggled a short while before his Servant finally remembered herself and leapt backwards so quickly that he didn't even see the move.

"I beg your forgiveness, Master!" she shrieked and prostrated herself before him.

Harry decided to be understanding. Apparently, he had just unpacked some emotional baggage for her. "It's fine. Just... be a tad more careful in the future. If Sakura saw that, she might have gotten the wrong idea."

An odd still came over Assassin. "Yes," she said with an indecipherable tone, "Mistress Sakura. It would be best if she did not worry."

"Precisely," Harry replied neutrally, unable to work out her meaning other than determining its lack of threat. "Speaking of, what precisely are your thoughts on her?"

* * *

After two quick knocks, Harry entered his and Sakura's bedroom to see his fiancee slowly brushing her sister's raven hair. Rin was absolutely rigid, but he chalked that up to the presence of Assassin at his shoulder and the knowledge of an astralized Berserker behind him.

"Ladies," he greeted, smiling broadly. "It's so good to see you're getting along."

Sakura rested her head in the crook of Rin's neck as she beamed up at him. "I know, dear! It's wonderful having a sister again! Isn't that right, Rin?"

The Tohsaka heir matched her sister's smile perfectly. "Absolutely wonderful, sister."

Harry stepped further into to room, bringing Assassin along with him. "Assassin here and I have spoken and reached an agreement. Pet, if you could come her for a moment and give me your hand?"

A bemused Sakura followed her fiance's instruction, presenting her soft hand before him. He turned it palm-up and drew the dagger from his cane's handle. With his free hand, he retrieved a small leather notebook from his vest pocket. In his mind, the key of an engine turned, and it roared to life. Prana pulsed through his circuits as they warmed with a familiar ache.

"A Book of False Attendant?" Sakura deduced, her gaze turning towards Assassin. Harry only nodded, focused on his work. The Crest Worms shivered beneath his skin, but in their prana-saturated state they obeyed his will. From them he called the ingrained spell of Zouken's design to transfer a command seal into a tome.

He cut a line across Sakura's palm and let the blood drip onto the book's pages. It soaked in, crimson red, and slowly began moving about to form runes and glyphs, binding Sakura to Assassin and vice versa. To finish the process, a command seal flowed from Harry's wrist and coiled itself on one of the pages.

As the ritual completed, Harry let the warmth of his circuits fade. "There. Now I don't have to worry about being drained of prana, nor of someone hurting you. She'll be your perfect hidden bodyguard. Take her everywhere with you, understand?"

Sakura nodded. Harry continued, "The one request Assassin has made of me is that she be permitted to stay manifested when possible. Naturally I agreed so she'll be taking the role of your handmaiden. As you are a noble heir by the standards of the Association, nobody will question it too closely."

"Makes sense," said Sakura, before looking over to Assassin. "Do you know the role?"

The blonde dipped her head in affirmation, bowing slightly at the waist. "Yes, Mistress. I was taught conduct and service as part of my training. For infiltration, but it suffices."

"Good. Then there should be no problems." Sakura smiled beatifically, the perfect image of innocent and purity. Ironically, it only fooled one person in the room.

"Wonderful," Harry cheered, cleaning the dagger with a handkerchief before replacing it in the cane and giving Sakura the Book of False Attendance. He turned to Rin, who had previously been staying out of the conversation. "Rin, I know it's getting a tad late but if we leave now we can still retrieve your things before dinner tonight."

Rin immediately stood. "Oh my, I nearly forgot about that!"

"Let's go then."

* * *

In the white van Harry had purchased years ago for utility purposes, it only took twenty minutes to cross town and reach the Tohsaka manor. He pulled the van up on the sidewalk by the moss-covered gate and killed the engine.

Cane in hand, he hopped out and strolled around to open Rin's door for her and assist her out. The gesture may have seemed a tad outdated, but upbringing with a noble magus family invariably instills certain values in anyone; etiquette high among them.

As he touched the gate leading to the side of the house, immediately he felt the bounded fields lock on to him. Curious, he willed his left eye, the artificial one, to visualize prana. Tendrils of mana appeared in the air, floating around him in deliberate but nearly incomprehensible patterns. Only years of Thaumaturgical education allowed him to piece together the natures of the overlapping bounded fields from the pranic flow.

He was impressed. Were it not for the lack of hostile intent, these fields would be raining jeweled spells down on him like explosive hail. Although, with Aegis, he'd still probably survive.

"After you," he said, unlatching the gate and opening it before Rin. She nodded thankfully, and fumbled her keys out of her pocket and into the antique door's aged lock.

The second the door was open, water flooded out inches high.

"No," she breathed. Denial.

"No!" she shouted. Anger.

"No! Please No!" she begged, rushing inside and running for the upstairs bathroom. Bargaining.

"Nooooooo!" she wailed after the first old, now waterlogged stair collapsed under her weight. She didn't even seem to notice the splinters. Looking up the staircase mournfully, she sunk into a ball at the foot of the stairs. Depression.

"NO!" she screamed, somehow having managed to find her way back to anger. Harry had to wonder how the others at school would react to seeing their idol throw a genuine red-faced, foot-kicking temper tantrum. Although, most of the men at least would be distracted by what the water was doing to her white blouse.

He wasn't a pervert. It was just that in his view, once you've had a threesome with an individual, the bounds of appropriate sexual conduct were broadened greatly.

Taking pity on his future sister-in-law, he knelt down and placed a hand in the shallow pool of water at his feet. An engine turned over in his mind, and suddenly the water surrounding him boiled off into vapor. More water immediately poured in, however, so he was forced to step past the borderline-catatonic Rin and find the source.

When the bloated wood of the stairs broke, several gleaming tentacles shot from Aegis and carried him to the second floor. From there, it was just a matter of following the flow to the bathroom.

The bathroom door was warped and bulging from the water damage, and Harry hesitated briefly before opening it. This was where Assassin had killed Archer. He thought it was odd that the Servant's body had apparently stuck around long enough for Rin to stumble across it, but he chalked that up the the fickleness of the Grail system. It had been designed in part by the Kaleidoscope, after all.

" _Fortuna audaces iuvat_ ," he mumbled, before pushing the door open. Water flooded out almost a foot high, and he could hear Rin spluttering several moments later at the bottom of the stairs when it reached her.

With Aegis' aid, he stalked through the torrent to where the large bath was still pumping out water. It seemed that all traces of Archer had dissolved by this point, because the body was absent, as was the message Assassin had written on the wall. He turned the taps off, finally bringing an end to the stream of water. Turning to survey the room as the liquid drained out the door, he felt a headache coming on.

He hoped Aegis would be able to formulate a mystery to repair water damage, because otherwise this was going to be a long cleanup process.

* * *

Back at the Matou Estate, Assassin had taken to her role of handmaiden with gusto. She'd been forced to read between the lines when her Master had proposed it, but she'd understood what this task truly was.

It was tentative approval.

She had not yet proven herself fully, but enough so that she was deemed worthy of the opportunity to serve his consort. It was _her_ approval she would have to seek in order to enter his bed, after all. Mistress Sakura held what Assassin desired most of all, which was why she had to make her offer _very_ carefully.

Currently, she was assisting her Mistress in the preparation of the evening meal, whilst looking for a way to broach the topic.

"So tell me," asked Sakura as she stirred a pot, "if Harry summoned you alongside Berserker, what have you been doing for the last four days?"

Assassin paused in chopping vegetables. This was the opportunity. "For the large part, shadowing Master and seeing to his protection. Aside from that, I've followed all goings-on in this manor."

Sakura nodded in acceptance of this answer, before freezing at its implication. "I see," she said with an air of forced civility, while mentally despairing, "and did you learn anything interesting?"

The cooking was ignored as both women stopped to face one another down. "I _think_ ," said Assassin tentatively, "that anything I witnessed was for the express benefit of my Master. I also think that, for the right price, I could be persuaded to aid in keeping certain meddling witches in line."

"And what would that price be?" Sakura asked tentatively, knowing that she would have to grant whatever it was. If Harry found out about her deal with Rin...

' _Dirty. Vile. Disgusting. Wretched. Whore._ '

She couldn't let that happen.

"I think you and I are... kindred spirits of a sort. We share similar mindsets. Similar drives. Similar... affections."

"You..." breathed Sakura, shocked and horrified as she drew the Servant's meaning.

"All I wish is to share in Master's affections. Permit me to do so, and I will aid you in ensuring your sister does as she's told."

"And if I refuse, you will expose me to Harry?"

"No," replied Assassin, surprising Sakura. "Even should you refuse, you will have my silence on the matter unless Master should ask me directly. I wish us to be allies, Mistress. Friends, even. Blackmail would be a poor start to that relationship."

Sakura considered the woman opposite her, before shaking her head. "I can't let you sleep with Harry. He's my fiance! Rin's bad enough!"

"You know he enjoyed it," Assassin countered, her voice laced with sweet temptation. "Having multiple women is the dream of any man, Master included. Think of me as... a sex toy. Something brought into bed to liven things up. I'll practically be an extension of you. You can even dictate my every action with regards to him. I shall only go so far as you allow."

Indecision wracked Sakura. Everything about this offer made sense and gave her what she wanted. But it would still mean letting another woman into Harry's bed.

'But d _o I really have the right to dictate that? To stand as the gatekeeper to his bedroom? I'm no better than Assassin. The only reason Harry started sleeping with me was because I couldn't control myself like the filthy, defiled creature I am. If I can make our... sessions more enjoyable, don't I have an obligation?_ '

Suddenly, she burst into the sort of laughter that only the damaged can have.

"Assassin," she said, extending her hand to the Servant, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful partnership."

"Mistress," replied Assassin as she knelt and laid a kiss on the back of Sakura's hand in a gesture of subservience, "you may consider me at your disposal."

* * *

Fortunately, Aegis _was_ able to provide Harry with the formula for a restoration mystery. While Rin bundled about the house gathering her things, he moved from room to room and began reversing the water damage. He made sure to take his time, since in his experience with Sakura few things took longer than a woman getting ready.

When Rin ventured into the basement, he took the opportunity to sneak a smoke. Now that he wasn't on Death's door, he could enjoy his tobacco without coughing blood.

The spiced smoke had a calming effect on him, allowing him to think with a clear head.

He wanted to take a run at Caster up in the Temple tonight, but that was impractical. While he had two Servants on his side, it would be the height of foolishness to ignore the potential ally he had in the Einzberns. It was also too late in the evening to seek them out without appearing to be an attacker. A day approach would be best to ensure a smooth negotiation.

That meant, presuming he could locate and ally the Einzberns, that he would be assaulting the Temple tomorrow night. It wasn't ideal. News of the sudden epidemic of unexplained fatigue and comas was constantly making front page of the papers, and people were beginning to talk of declaring a health emergency.

Fucking Casters.

Still, overall he was doing fairly well for the War. Archer was dead, Berserker and Assassin his, Caster slated for death, Saber allying with him, if only temporarily. Rider and Lancer were still wild-cards, however, so he remained cautious.

He finished undoing the last of the flooding with time to spare. Quite a lot, in fact, as it was another hour before Rin finally emerged with a single bloated suitcase. Harry raised an eyebrow at it. "Is that all you need to take?"

"Don't make me second guess," begged Rin. "It was hard enough getting it down to this much."

"Right," replied Harry as he glanced down to his watch. "Well, we've missed dinner. I'm going to have to grab something on the way back."

It was a ten minute detour once Harry and Rin were loaded back in the van, but Fontanel's Ice Cream was always worth it. Harry had used it to capitalize on Sakura's carefully-hidden sweet tooth countless times before when he needed to placate her.

He ordered five to-go containers at the counter, purchasing one for Berserker just for the hell of it. It was during his self-examination in the reflective surface of the countertop that he saw something that made him freeze.

A short, white-haired girl was sitting next to a blonde woman at a table behind him, both consuming vast quantities of ice cream.

" _Rin,_ " he whispered as quietly as he could, " _don't look 'round, but use the counter reflection. Are those the Einzberns behind us?_ "

Harry realized his mistake when he peaked at the reflection again and saw the blonde woman making eye-contact with him through it. He swallowed, taking refuge only in the fact that as one of the three founding families, the Einzberns wouldn't start a public confrontation.

' _Then again, this one's an Emiya apparently_.'

He could feel Berserker straining at his metaphysical leash, begging to be unleashed, but Harry clamped down on it. Not yet.

Seeing that the Saber had outed him to her Master, he strode over to the table with Rin following woodenly in his footsteps. The Servant tensed at his approach, but seemed to dismiss him after glancing at his cane.

Arrogant. He could work with that.

"May we?" he asked, gesturing to the two empty chairs at the table.

"Please," replied the homunculus. Harry pulled a seat out for Rin before sitting himself.

After glancing warily at the Saber for permission, he extended his hand to her white-haired Master. "Harry Matou. Representative for the family. I understand you and Rin here have already met."

"Yes we have. Illyasviel Emiya, but you're free to call me Illya," she replied cheerfully, taking his hand and shaking it delicately before turning to Rin. "And it's good to see you again! I'm so sorry we got interrupted last time."

"It's no trouble," said Rin, and Harry had to admit that her poker face was improving. She barely flinched at being addressed by an enemy Master. "I'm just glad everything worked out."

Harry grimaced. "Permit me to express my apologies for that bit of unpleasantness. When I sent Berserker scouting near the Temple, I was not expecting him to run into another Master, let alone two."

"So you are the Master of Berserker, then?" said the Saber suddenly, her detached glare suddenly growing sharp. The intensity of her gaze struck Harry like a physical force, and he was reminded of why despite the strength of Berserkers, Sabers were considered the most powerful Servants.

"Indeed," he answered carefully. "I understand you gave him quite the fight. Rin spoke highly of the prowess you displayed against him."

Either the flattery worked, or the Servant simply didn't care enough to press the issue because she resumed eating her ice cream and seemingly ignoring the conversation once more. Harry subtly exhaled in relief.

Illya examined the two other Masters closely. "Are the two of you allies, then? I've heard that the Matou and Tohsaka families were close, but I didn't think that extended to the War."

"Regrettably," said Harry, preempting Rin's response, "Rin's Archer was killed two nights ago by Assassin. Since we're not sure how he infiltrated her manor, and as Rin is my future sister-in-law, I granted her my protection."

Rin hesitated at Harry's omission of how Assassin was technically _his_ Servant, but fortunately given the circumstances it appeared to the others as a remembrance of trauma.

"How awful!" exclaimed Illya, turning to Rin sympathetically. "I'm sorry to hear that. If I run into that fiend Assassin, I'll be sure to take him out of the War."

"Unfortunately," Harry said gravely, "I'm afraid an even larger fiend currently plagues this city. Our meeting was quite fortuitous, actually. I meant to seek you out tomorrow, but this saves us both time. Rin mentioned that before Berserker interrupted, the two of you were preparing to ally in the name of stopping Caster's madness. While our Servants did not meet on the best of terms, it is our duty as the Founding Families of the War to keep a semblance of order. If you are willing, I would have us ally for this cause."

A certain edge entered Illya's tone, and Harry realized that he'd entered dangerous territory. "Founding Family? I'm not certain what you mean."

"Please pardon me should I give any unintended offense," he began diplomatically, "but I presumed that you were the Einzbern Master. I've made no small study of alchemy, so I recognize a homunculus when I see one. Between that and the name Emiya, I gathered that you were at least representing them. Am I incorrect?"

"You are," Illya ground out tightly. "I no longer bear ties to the Einzberns. I represent myself in this War."

Harry knew that this question was hazardous, but he had to ask. "If I may, what is your relationship to Kiritsugu Emiya that you have assumed his name? I ask only because I'm something of a fan of his work."

Immediately, he saw that he'd apparently asked the right question as Illya's mood inverted to a bubbly cheerfulness once more. Rather dangerously mercurial, this girl. "Really? I've never met anyone that spoke highly of my father. I understand most magi hold him in contempt."

"Most magi are arrogant fools. Kiritsugu Emiya was a man who made the best of a bad hand and still managed to do some good in this world. I admire that."

"It's good to hear that. Few truly understood my father, but he was a good man at heart. To answer you earlier question: yes, Saber and I are willing to put our quarrels aside temporarily to stop Caster. Do you have a plan?"

"Not presently, but between us we have the two Servants with the highest magical resistance. We should be able to blast through whatever defenses Caster has placed. Some daytime reconnaissance would not be amiss, however. Let us go home for the night and reconvene here in the morning. May we escort you back to your lodgings? With Assassin on the prowl, even for a Master and Servant it is unsafe to wander alone at night."

"Of course!" replied Illya with all the guileless innocence of a child. "Safety in numbers. It will also give us some time to get acquainted."

"Wonderful."

As they rose to leave and Harry placed a freezing mystery over his ice cream, none of them noticed a man with golden hair watching them from the street, eyes ablaze with fury.

* * *

' _You know,_ ' said Illya to Saber over their mental link as Harry drove them back to their hotel, ' _I do believe I recall being taught at some point that I should never get into white vans with strangers._ '

' _I think we have larger problems_ ,' Saber replied. ' _I have seen men like this one before. Hollow. That part about your father was the only genuine confession he revealed during that entire conversation. Magi like him have no loyalty or cause higher than themselves._ '

Illya considered this, before dismissing it. ' _I'm not sure. He's hollow like you say, but there's something behind those eyes. Or the one, anyway. I think we can trust him.'_

' _I will take great pleasure then in being right after I deflect the knife he tries to place in your back.'_

 _'I'm not saying don't watch him, but I'm not throwing a potential ally in destroying the Grail. Anyone who respected my Father's work can't be wholly evil.'_

 _'Very well.'_

* * *

Harry glanced at his passengers in the rear-view mirror. It was late at night by this point, and they were driving through the relatively-empty district that had burned down during the last War. "So if you don't mind my asking, Illya, how did Kiritsugu Emiya end up fathering a homunculus? From my reading I received the impression that they were naturally sterile."

"It was part of his payment from the Einzberns. My mother Irisviel was the Lesser Grail in the last War, and they modified her so that she could bear me."

"I see," Harry said, his face contemplative, "what ha—"

He was cut off by the sensation of an enormous prana source nearby. His foot barely had time to touch the brake pedal before something slammed into the front of the van like a bollard. The engine block caved in instantly, and the momentum of the vehicle carried it forward into a flip.

Harry's stomach seemed to rise into his throat as he and his passengers temporarily experienced weightlessness. Aegis could protect his body, but it couldn't shield him from the g-force. Black encroached in on the edges of his vision, and his breathing heightened. Time seemed to slow as adrenaline pumped through his veins.

Then the vehicle slammed back down onto the road. It slid another ten meters of its roof before finally coming to a stop. Smoke began emanating from its broken engine and he smelled gas.

With the cessation of motion, Harry's sensation returned to him. He was seated upside-down, his safety belt keeping him in place. A mental command had Aegis flow over his arm and form a knife that he used to cut himself free and fall to the shredded roof that the ground. Turning, he saw that Rin was in bad shape next to him. Her forehead was bleeding severely and the jagged metal of the engine block had pushed in and pinned her lower body.

 _"_ Rin," he called out. She stirred, but did not answer. From the backseat, he heard the sound of tearing metal and craned his neck to see the Saber cutting open the back of the van. Her Master was also unconscious and tucked under the Servant's arm. Once an opening was made, the blonde pulled herself out the back and vanished with Illya.

The smell of gas grew more pungent, and Harry felt a pool of it forming around him and staining his shirt.

He had to get Rin out. She could not die. He could not let her die.

Groaning, he braced himself against the console and used his Aegis-reinforced good leg to kick out the driver's side door. At a mental command, several metal tendrils flowed from his armor and delicately began peeling back the metal pinning Rin in. Once the final piece was pushed away, he cut the girl's seatbelt and caught her in his arms.

Placing his hands under her armpits, he backed out of the smoking vehicle and dragged her along with him. Aegis sent him a mental warning and he spun around as fast as he could. Crouching over Rin to shield her, he let his armor expand into a protective shell around them. The van detonated into an explosive fireball a second later that washed over the pair. Once it was safe, he rose to survey his surroundings.

In a word, he was _pissed_.

The key of an engine turned in his mind, and Berserker manifested by his side with a roar that demanded blood. Harry was more than happy to oblige. After a brief glance, he spotted where his cane had fallen and summoned it to his hand with a wind mystery. The runes inside glowed at his anger.

A figure stood in the dead center of the road, some ways off. He looked like a punk teenager, wearing an open-front white shirt and black jacket. His blonde hair was worn low and his red eyes seemed to gleam in the moonlight. The arrogant, almost challenging expression on his face left no doubt as to who had launched the attack.

"Berserker," Harry ordered simply. "Kill him."

His Servant needed no other orders. Like a murderous blur, the giant charged the target of his Master's ire with an enormous and crude axe held in one his his huge hands. It seemed as if Harry's veins were filled with molten lead as the Servant drew prana, but he powered through it. This pain was nothing.

The unknown attacker didn't even flinch. Instead, with an almost bored expression he lifted his hand and with a golden flash as sword shot over his shoulder at Berserker. It bounced off his skin like a pebble, and the blonde frowned slightly. Suddenly a dozen small circles appeared behind his head and launched their payloads at the enemy Servant.

Once more, Berserker blitzed through them like they weren't even there. Now the blonde outright scowled. A single, larger circle appeared at his shoulder and launched a glowing streak at the son of Zeus.

This time, it had an effect. The weapon pierced right through Berserker's neck and almost decapitated him. Only a thin shred of flesh connected the ebony giant's head to his shoulders as he collapsed to the ground heavily.

Harry cursed vehemently. He knew that his Servant would regenerate, but until that happened he was on his own.

The mysterious Servant's gaze turned to Harry. "A dog and his crippled master stand against me. How pathetic. I've disposed of your cur, boy. Tell me where that mockery of my Saber is, and I may find it in me to grant you clemency."

Once again, supreme arrogance. Harry knew how to exploit that. "Even if I knew, I can't forgive that unprovoked assault. I will take my pound of flesh personally if I must. Stand and deliver!"

The king burst out laughing, and Harry pretended to be furious as he limped forward in a charge. He weakly projected a blade into his free hand, raising it in a facade of bravado. "How amusing!" Gilgamesh chuckled, letting Harry approach. "I've heard that you magi were proud, but this is almost... charming. Tell you what, boy, the first attack will carry no retribution. Try to strike me down so that you may despair when you realize its futility."

That was all Harry needed. He staggered towards Gilgamesh and brought his already-fading blade down in a truly atrocious arc that the king sidestepped with contemptuous ease.

Harry let the swing's momentum carry him forward and he pretended to fall to his good knee behind the enemy Servant.

Gilgamesh turned around to gloat over his opponent. "Do you see now, boy? You've lost. Surrender and tell me where Saber is, or I will take your head here."

Suddenly, his red eyes widened and he ducked just in time to dodge a vicious swing from the reformed and now even more pissed Berserker behind him. His maneuver found the tip of Harry's cane pressed against his chin. He glared in fury at being played.

" _Ardor_ ," Harry incanted. The potent flame mystery from his cane blasted Gilgamesh backwards and he landed hard before finally skidding into a roll.

"You..." Gilgamesh seethed, and Harry blanched at realizing he'd only given the Servant a bloody nose. "I cannot begin to express the degree of suffering you will experience for that. And your dog's divinity will not save him again against the Chain of Enkidu."

With a mental command, Harry sent Berserker back into the fray. The giant charged Gilgamesh once more, but this time he was stopped right away. A number of portals opened around Gilgamesh and from them emerged chains. The daggers attached to the ends pieced right through Berserker's divine skin, wrapping around him and tightening until he was completely immobilized.

Even so, the Servant struggled like a pitbull on a choke chain. "It's futile," said Gilgamesh. "Those chains become stronger the more divinity an individual possesses. Not even one of your command seals could liberate him from those bonds. Feel honored that I have been forced to use them. Now face your doom with some dignity, cur."

The sky filled with weapons. Like hail Harry was beset on all sides by swords, lances, halberds, pikes. And they all radiated prana like Noble Phantasms. He dodged and ducked, and what he couldn't evade was blocked by Aegis, but he was now on a timer. Using his armor to this degree was a major drain. The second he ran out of prana, he would die.

Desperately, he tried to plan some way out of this situation. He was rather certain he knew this Servant. It was rumored that the Tohsakas had summoned Gilgamesh of Uruk in the last war. And between the unbelievable arrogance and Chain of Enkidu, it was clear that he was up against the First Legend, the immortal son of Lugalbanda and Ninsun. He had no clue how the Servant was still around from the last War, unless he'd been resummoned under a different class.

Not that he could actually do anything with this information while desperately evading attacks. He would have called Assassin, but with the Book of False Attendant his command seals wouldn't work on her.

There was a blur behind Gilgamesh and a pause in the attacks. Abruptly, all of the weapons surrounding Harry dissolved. Only the Chain restraining Berserker remained. Harry looked past the king to see what had drawn his attention.

Saber stood opposite the golden figure, clad in black armor and wielding an ebony blade. Her stern face was locked in a furious scowl.

"Is this how the supposed King of Kings conducts himself? Ambushing vehicles and raining swords? Even the Matou boy has displayed more mettle than you."

"Finally," said Gilgamesh. "You have a great deal to account for, _creature_. Who are you and what have you done to my beautiful Saber?"

The Saber's expression grew livid. "If you speak of the foolish girl who let her weakness lead herself and her kingdom to destruction, she is not here. I am the one who did what was necessary."

Every facet Gilgamesh's appearance turned murderous. The air filled with weapons once more.

"I will not permit you to taint the pure image of my queen. I will destroy you so utterly that your memory will be stricken from the Throne of Heroes—never to blacken the world again."

"You will try," she replied, raising her sword into a battle position.

Like two titans they clashed together. The air filled with steel and prana as the two kings fought for dominance.

Harry meanwhile was ignored. He slowly crept over to where Berserker was restrained. Structural Analysis told him that he had no hope of undoing the Chains. These were no mere projections. The Chains were completely physical, simply pulled from wherever Gilgamesh kept his weapons. Even now, the dozens of ends led into portals surrounding Berserker.

The giant continued struggling, but even he lacked the strength to move effectively under the bindings. He could pull a few links at a time from the portal, but the daggers remained pierced through him and would not come out no matter how much he tried. His divinity rendered him powerless to free himself.

 _Divinity_.

Looking down at his arm, a desperate plan formed. Saber, powerful as she was, would not win this fight. Even now she had several minor slashes across her face and armor, while Gilgamesh's bloody nose had already healed.

Harry breathed and channeled as much prana as he dared. His circuits burned, the worms writhed, but he persevered. Od thrummed through his body like a thunderous heartbeat. Right as he felt he was going to burst from the strain, he forced it all into a single command seal.

He whispered a single command to Berserker, then collapsed onto the pavement.

* * *

This fight was not going well.

Arthuria wasn't sure what her alternate self had done to attract this level of obsession from the First Legend, but she tallied another reason to loathe that insipid girl.

She would be able to land a sufficient blow should she get close, but that infernal Noble Phantasm of his seemed specifically designed to keep swordsmen like herself at bay. Her prana bursts allowed her to maneuver around the attacks themselves, but even her summoner did not have unlimited prana to fuel them forever.

If she were able to fight alongside the Berserker this would be relatively simple, but while she'd been securing her summoner it seemed Gilgamesh had trapped the giant in some manner of divinity-binding chain, rendering him bound to the spot.

Suddenly she spotted the Matou Master approach his Servant. He placed his hand on the Chain, frowned, and then looked at his arm for a moment.

She saw his green eyes light up and knew that he'd thought of something.

Gilgamesh was fortunately attacking her with single-minded determination, which worked out because it served to keep him distracted while the Matou did his work.

An inopportune spin saw a nameless blade slash across her cheek, sending her blood to soak the pavement one more. She growled and retreated, using Excalibur Morgan to deflect the follow-up barrage. Her gaze looked past Gilgamesh to the Matou. They locked eyes, and _something_ passed between them. She didn't understand his plan, but she knew it involved her dropping back.

The moment she did so, Berserker strained once more. Empowered by an overloaded command seal, he pulled more chain from the already-overtaxed portal and slowly advanced on the unaware Gilgamesh one heavy step at a time.

Saber harried the king from the flanks, keeping his attention while her ally approached from the rear.

Finally, the giant loomed behind his enemy. His ebony muscles bulged grotesquely and his nigh-impervious skin bled from where the Chain was cutting into it from the pressure.

With a final, triumphant roar he placed his hands on the two daggers penetrating his stomach and _pushed_ them through his body and out his back. He grabbed the two ends, pulled them through, and waited until Gilgamesh whirled around before stabbing the both of them into the demigod.

"No," he whispered, with the expression of a man experiencing fear for the first time in his life. Desperately he tried to retract the Chain, but once the daggers pieced the skin of a divine being they would not be removed by any means. When the Chain pulled back into the portal, he was yanked along for the ride.

Berserker grabbed him in an enormous bear hug, further entangling him in the golden chains.

"I refuse to be brought low like this!" screamed Gilgamesh as he flailed uselessly against Berserker's command-sealed strength. "The Chain of Enkidu is _mine_! It obeys me!"

Saber watched as the Matou smiled from the sidelines. "Gilgamesh," he said with mocking disappointment, "I thought you of all people would know this. The Chain of Enkidu's sole purpose is to bind rampaging divinities. You just happen to be among them. Saber, if it's not too much of a bother..."

Taking the cue, she stepped up with a smile on her face. She had to say, she quite liked this boy.

"If you see your Saber when you get to the Throne," she said, pointing her Excalibur Morgan at the bound pair of Servants, "tell her I sent you."

She activated her Noble Phantasm to its fullest degree and a beam of pure darkness descended from the sky to engulf her trapped foe. Just to be safe, she kept the attack going for a solid fifteen seconds before finally letting it dissipate.

The smoke slowly cleared to reveal a glowing crater in the center of the road, occupied only by a smoldering black carcass. Her golden eyes turned once more to the Matou, realizing that she'd just slain his Servant.

"Don't worry," he said, gesturing to the twitching carcass with his cane. "He'll be back."

* * *

 _The Mistress bade him to stay secret. The Mistress bade him to spread her gift._

 _He stalked under the bridge to where the meatbags were huddled around a fire. He didn't like fire. He didn't like light. It hurt his skin. He didn't like pain._

 _Leaping from the shadows, he sunk his teeth into the throat of the first. The second made a noise he no longer understood and ran away. That wasn't smart. Food runs._

 _As he drained the second meatbag for his blood, the body of the first rose unsteadily and shambled after him._

* * *

With the van totaled, Harry was forced to have Aegis hotwire a sedan to transport the still-unconscious Illya and Rin. Fortunately, he was able to salvage Rin's suitcase from the burnt wreckage of the van and load it into the trunk. With a technically enemy Servant riding shotgun, it made for an awkward drive to say the least.

"What do you fight for?" Saber asked suddenly, causing Harry to jerk.

"What do I fight for?" he parroted in confusion. "In what sense?"

"Why are you fighting this War? I've seen others like you before, boy. You are hollow. But hollow men do not endanger themselves like you did. Nor do they care enough to plan like that. So what drives you? What is your cause?"

Harry was silent for a long while. "I have someone to protect—someone that will suffer greatly should I lose this War. I cannot afford to fail. And you?"

Saber blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"You've asked me a probing question. Reciprocity is only fair."

"I suppose," she said cautiously.

"Why do you never refer to Illya as your Master?"

"Because she isn't," Saber replied simply. "She summoned me and I have lent her my blade to destroy the Grail since its existence jeopardizes my own, but she is not my Master. Through my life I fought, killed, and bled for countless causes and Masters. None of them were worth it. All I seek is one worthy of my blade."

"I see," said Harry without judgement or evaluation, and the rest of the ride to the hotel went in comfortable silence.

* * *

Rin woke up halfway back to the manor, very confused. After Harry carefully explained the situation to her, she sat in stunned shock.

"You pulled me out of the van," she said, her tone indecipherable.

"Yes," Harry replied.

"We were under attack," she pointed out.

"Yes," he said, frustration entering his voice, "and the van was also on fire. I wasn't going to leave you to die."

Rin sat there for a long moment processing this. With a sigh, Harry pulled the car over onto the shoulder of the road.

"Listen to me Rin," he said very seriously, turning to look her in the eye. "I made a promise to protect you as Sakura's sister. I fully intend to keep that promise. But even more... there's _something else_ to my feelings for you. After last night, I'm not sure what they are. I've never _felt_ anything for anyone besides Sakura and honestly I'm not sure how to deal with this. But tell me if I'm doing this right."

He leaned over and captured her lips in a kiss. Visions of Sakura flashed before her eyes, but she blocked them out. The kiss was too right. She felt too safe in his arms to pull away.

She had no choice but to lean in and reciprocate. Consequences be damned.

* * *

An exhausted and drained Harry limped through the front door of the manor. Fortunately, he was the good kind of drained—the kind that could be cured by a session with Sakura... and Rin now he supposed since he was apparently sharing.

Speaking of, his wonderful fiance met him at the door with Assassin at her shoulder. At some point it seemed the Servant had acquired a maid's uniform. Good. It fit her cover.

"Oh dear," Sakura cooed as she placed and arm under him for support. "What happened?" Assassin quickly moved to take his other arm before a hesitant Rin could. He supposed she was really eager to help him.

"Got into a fight with a Servant," he said. "Managed to take him out, but Berserker's down a few lives and I'm low on prana. I'm going to need a top up."

Rin opened her suitcase on the nearby table and retrieved a small jeweler's bag. "I've retrieved some gems from my workshop. I'll be able to transfer the energy to you directly during the ritual."

"Very good," praised Sakura, and Assassin smiled in tandem.

* * *

Harry was laying down in bed, dressed solely in his underwear. Sakura had simply deposited him in the bed and told him to wait before departing the room. A surprise then.

"Close your eyes, love," he heard Sakura call from the other side of the door. He did so obligingly, and heard the door creak open and two pairs of footsteps enter the room.

 **For safety reasons, I will be placing this and any future lemons in a separate story. See my profile.**


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